Can the failure of the trial court to inquire into the prosecutor's reasons for the peremptory exclusion of minority venirepersons from a trial without further proceedings?

While the failure of the trial court to inquire into the prosecutor's reasons for the peremptory exclusion of minority venirepersons might well suffice to cause a state appellate court to order a new trial without further proceedings, see, e.g., People v. Thompson, 79 A.D.2d 87, 435 N.Y.S.2d 739 (1981), there are circumstances here that suggest that the district court should have held a hearing to conduct an inquiry into those reasons.

First, principles of federalism and comity suggest that a writ of habeas corpus not be granted freeing a state defendant or granting him a new trial without giving the state every opportunity to respond to the petitioner's allegations. Thus, in Bermudez v. Reid, 733 F.2d 18 (2d Cir.1984), in which the state had repeatedly defaulted in its obligation to respond to the allegations of the petition, we reversed the district court's granting of the writ on the basis of those defaults. We ruled that the court was required to conduct a hearing into the allegations to determine whether the petitioner could make some factual showing that his federal rights had been violated, and that, notwithstanding the earlier inexcusable defaults, the state should be given notice of the hearing in order that the court might consider the petition on the basis of the best available evidence.