Cite as: 503 U. S. 562 (1992)
Per Curiam
intended and interpreted to raise a claim under the Equal Protection Clause on the evidentiary theory articulated in Batson's antecedent, Swain v. Alabama." Id., at 419. We placed this interpretation on the reference to history because the standard of proof for an equal protection violation under Swain required a showing of racial exclusion in "case after case." 380 U. S., at 223.
In the matter now before us petitioner also relied on a claim of a historical pattern of discriminatory use of peremptory challenges. That alone would have been sufficient under Ford to place the equal protection claim before the trial court. Of course, petitioner did more. He made an express reference to Swain in his argument to the trial court. 11 Record 356. In fact, petitioner argued that we would modify Swain's burden of proof and that the Texas courts should anticipate our decision. We decide that petitioner presented his equal protection claim to the trial court.
We determine further that petitioner preserved his equal protection claim before the Court of Criminal Appeals. His argument caption made an express reference to the Fourteenth Amendment, and the issue presented for review was the very one that he had raised before the trial court.
The State in its brief to the Court of Criminal Appeals recognized that petitioner's argument contained an equal protection claim, albeit one which the State believed to lack merit. The State did not argue that petitioner was not making an equal protection claim but that petitioner's equal protection claim had no legal support. Given our later holding in Powers v. Ohio, supra, the State's contention is incorrect.
We cannot ignore the fact that were we to hold petitioner had forfeited his equal protection claim by failing to state it with sufficient precision, we would be applying a stricter standard than applied in Batson itself. There petitioner had conceded in the state courts that Swain foreclosed a direct equal protection claim, and he based his argument on the Sixth Amendment and a provision of the Kentucky Constitu-
567
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