Cite as: 528 U. S. 304 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
Deputy Solicitor General Dreeben argued the cause for the United States. With him on the briefs were Solicitor General Waxman, Assistant Attorney General Robinson, David C. Frederick, and Richard A. Friedman.
Michael D. Gordon, by appointment of the Court, 527 U. S. 1054, argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent.*
Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court.
In Ross v. Oklahoma, 487 U. S. 81 (1988), this Court reaffirmed that "peremptory challenges [to prospective jurors] are not of constitutional dimension," id., at 88; rather, they are one means to achieve the constitutionally required end of an impartial jury. We address in this case a problem in federal jury selection left open in Ross. See id., at 91, n. 4. We focus on this sequence of events: the erroneous refusal of a trial judge to dismiss a potential juror for cause, followed by the defendant's exercise of a peremptory challenge to remove that juror. Confronting that order of events, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment requires automatic reversal of a conviction whenever the defendant goes on to exhaust his peremptory challenges during jury selection. 146 F. 3d 653 (1998).
We reverse the Ninth Circuit's judgment. We reject the Government's contention that under federal law, a defendant is obliged to use a peremptory challenge to cure the judge's error. We hold, however, that if the defendant elects to cure such an error by exercising a peremptory challenge, and is subsequently convicted by a jury on which no biased juror sat, he has not been deprived of any rule-based or constitutional right.
*David A. Reiser and Barbara Bergman filed a brief for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers et al. as amici curiae urging affirmance.
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