Cite as: 517 U. S. 456 (1996)
Opinion of the Court
voked to interfere with the course of criminal justice of a State." 198 U. S., at 508 (emphasis added).
Although Ah Sin involved federal review of a state conviction, we think a similar rule applies where the power of a federal court is invoked to challenge an exercise of one of the core powers of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government, the power to prosecute.
Respondents urge that cases such as Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79 (1986), and Hunter v. Underwood, 471 U. S. 222 (1985), cut against any absolute requirement that there be a showing of failure to prosecute similarly situated individuals. We disagree. In Hunter, we invalidated a state law disenfranchising persons convicted of crimes involving moral turpitude. Id., at 233. Our holding was consistent with ordinary equal protection principles, including the similarly situated requirement. There was convincing direct evidence that the State had enacted the provision for the purpose of disenfranchising blacks, id., at 229-231, and indisputable evidence that the state law had a discriminatory effect on blacks as compared to similarly situated whites: Blacks were " 'by even the most modest estimates at least 1.7 times as likely as whites to suffer disfranchisement under' " the law in question, id., at 227 (quoting Underwood v. Hunter, 730 F. 2d 614, 620 (CA11 1984)). Hunter thus affords no support for respondents' position.
In Batson, we considered "[t]he standards for assessing a prima facie case in the context of discriminatory selection of the venire" in a criminal trial. 476 U. S., at 96. We required a criminal defendant to show "that the prosecutor has exercised peremptory challenges to remove from the venire members of the defendant's race" and that this fact, the potential for abuse inherent in a peremptory strike, and "any other relevant circumstances raise an inference that the prosecutor used that practice to exclude the veniremen from the petit jury on account of their race." Ibid. During jury selection, the entire res gestae take place in front of the trial
467
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