566
Per Curiam
opinion cited neither Powers nor Ford v. Georgia, 498 U. S. 411, which we decided on February 19, 1991. We now grant certiorari.
II
In Ford v. Georgia, we addressed what steps a defendant in a criminal case was required to take to preserve an equal protection objection to the State's race based use of peremptory challenges during the pre-Batson era. Here we consider whether petitioner took those steps.
In Ford, the petitioner filed a pretrial "Motion to Restrict Racial Use of Peremptory Challenges," 498 U. S., at 413, wording which is in all material respects parallel to the present petitioner's pretrial "Motion to Prohibit the State from Using Peremptory Challenges to Strike Members of a Cognizable Group." The ultimate issue in Ford concerned the validity of a state procedural rule, but before reaching it we ruled on a preliminary issue, and that ruling is dispositive here. We stated:
"The threshold issues are whether and, if so, when petitioner presented the trial court with a cognizable Batson claim that the State's exercise of its peremptory challenges rested on the impermissible ground of race in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. We think petitioner must be treated as having raised such a claim, although he certainly failed to do it with the clarity that appropriate citations would have promoted. The pretrial motion made no mention of the Equal Protection Clause, and the later motion for a new trial cited the Sixth Amendment, not the Fourteenth." Id., at 418.
Despite the inartfulness of the Ford petitioner's assertion of his rights, we held he had presented his claim to the trial court. We noted that his reference in his motion to exclusion of black jurors " 'over a long period of time,' " and his argument to the same effect "could reasonably have been
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