How have the courts treated the issue of race in the selection of a jury?

Initially, defendants fault the court for failing to take into account "the Alameda County District Attorney's Office history of excluding African-Americans from juries." Defendants cite Miller-El v. Cockrell (2003) 537 U.S. 322, 347 for the proposition that "the fact that a prosecutor belongs to a district attorney's office with a history of racial bias is a factor to consider in the 'totality of the relevant facts about a prosecutor's conduct.' " Not only did the defense attorneys not make any such argument in the trial court or present facts sufficient to support such a claim, Denard's attorney expressly discouraged the court from considering "things that are outside of our record such as other experiences." Accordingly, this argument has been waived.

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Defendants also challenge the sincerity in the prosecutor's concern with L.A.'s employment. It is well established, however, that "[w]hether a prosecutor's generalizations about a given occupation have any basis in reality or not, a prosecutor 'surely . . . can challenge a potential juror whose occupation, in the prosecutor's subjective estimation, would not render him or her the best type of juror to sit on the case for which the jury is being selected.' " (People v. Trinh (2014) 59 Cal.4th 216, 242.) The trial court found the prosecutor's explanation sincere and we see no evidence of pretext.