306
Syllabus
challenges are exercised. None of them demands that a defendant use or refrain from using a challenge on a particular basis or when a particular set of facts is present. To date this Court has recognized only one substantive control over a federal criminal defendant's choice of whom to challenge peremptorily. Under the Equal Protection Clause, a defendant may not exercise a challenge to remove a potential juror solely on the basis of the juror's gender, ethnic origin, or race. See, e. g., Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79. The Court declines to read into Rule 24, or otherwise impose, the further control advanced by the Government. Pp. 314-315.
(d) However, the Court agrees with the Government's narrower contention that Rule 24(b) was not violated in this case. The Ninth Circuit erred in concluding that the District Court's mistake compelled Martinez-Salazar to challenge Gilbert peremptorily, thereby reducing his allotment of peremptory challenges by one. A hard choice is not the same as no choice. Martinez-Salazar received and exercised 11 peremptory challenges. That is all he is entitled to under the Rule. After objecting to the District Court's denial of his for-cause challenge, he had the option of letting Gilbert sit on the petit jury and, upon conviction, pursuing a Sixth Amendment challenge on appeal. Instead, he elected to use a challenge to remove Gilbert. In choosing to remove Gilbert rather than taking his chances on appeal, Martinez-Salazar did not lose a peremptory challenge. Rather, he used the challenge in line with a principal reason for peremptories: to help secure the constitutional guarantee of trial by an impartial jury. See, e. g., J. E. B. v. Alabama ex rel. T. B., 511 U. S. 127, 137, n. 8. Moreover, the immediate choice he confronted comports with the reality of the jury selection process. Challenges for cause and rulings upon them are fast paced, made on the spot and under pressure. Counsel as well as court in that process must be prepared promptly to decide, often between shades of gray. Pp. 315-317.
(e) Martinez-Salazar and his codefendant were accorded the exact number of peremptory challenges that federal law allowed; he cannot tenably assert any violation of his Fifth Amendment due process right. See Ross, 487 U. S., at 91. P. 317.
146 F. 3d 653, reversed.
Ginsburg, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Stevens, O'Connor, Souter, Thomas, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Souter, J., filed a concurring opinion, post, p. 317. Scalia, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which Kennedy, J., joined, post, p. 318.
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