RIVERA v. ILLINOIS

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148 OCTOBER TERM, 2008
Syllabus
RIVERA v. ILLINOIS
certiorari to the supreme court of illinois
No. 07–9995. Argued February 23, 2009—Decided March 31, 2009
During jury selection in petitioner Rivera’s state-court first-degree mur
der trial, his counsel sought to use a peremptory challenge to excuse
venire member Deloris Gomez. Rivera had already exercised two
peremptory challenges against women, one of whom was African-
American. It is conceded that there was no basis to challenge Gomez
for cause. She met the requirements for jury service, and Rivera does
not contend that she was biased against him. The trial court rejected
the peremptory challenge out of concern that it was discriminatory.
Under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79, and later decisions applying
Batson, parties are constitutionally prohibited from exercising peremp
tory challenges to exclude jurors based on race, ethnicity, or sex. At
trial, the jury, with Gomez as its foreperson, found Rivera guilty of
first-degree murder. The Illinois Supreme Court subsequently af
firmed the conviction, holding that the peremptory challenge should
have been allowed, but rejecting Rivera’s argument that the improper
seating of Gomez was a reversible error. Observing that the Constitu
tion does not mandate peremptory challenges and that they are not nec
essary for a fair trial, the court held that the denial of Rivera’s peremp
tory challenge was not a structural error requiring automatic reversal.
Nor, the court found, was the error harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
The court added that it did not need to decide whether the trial court’s
denial was “an error of constitutional dimension” in the circumstances
of Rivera’s case, a comment that appears to be related to Rivera’s argu
ments that, even absent a freestanding constitutional entitlement to pe
remptory challenges, the inclusion of Gomez on his jury violated the
Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
Held: Provided that all jurors seated in a criminal case are qualified and
unbiased, the Due Process Clause does not require automatic reversal
of a conviction because of the trial court’s good-faith error in denying
the defendant’s peremptory challenge to a juror. Pp. 156–162.
(a) Rivera maintains that due process requires reversal whenever a
criminal defendant’s peremptory challenge is erroneously denied. He
asserts that a trial court that fails to dismiss a lawfully challenged juror
commits structural error because the jury becomes an illegally consti
tuted tribunal, whose verdict is per se invalid; that this is true even if
the Constitution does not mandate peremptory challenges, since crimi

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nal defendants have a constitutionally protected liberty interest in their
state-provided peremptory challenge rights; that the issue is not amena
ble to harmless-error analysis, as it is impossible to ascertain how a
properly constituted jury would have decided his case; and that auto
matic reversal therefore must be the rule as a matter of federal law.
Rivera’s arguments do not withstand scrutiny. If a defendant is tried
before a qualified jury composed of individuals not challengeable for
cause, the loss of a peremptory challenge due to a state court’s good
faith error is not a matter of federal constitutional concern. Rather, it
is a matter for the State to address under its own laws. There is no
freestanding constitutional right to peremptory challenges. See, e. g.,
United States v. Martinez-Salazar, 528 U. S. 304, 311. They are “a
creature of statute,” Ross v. Oklahoma, 487 U. S. 81, 89, which a State
may decline to offer at all, Georgia v. McCollum, 505 U. S. 42, 57. Thus,
the mistaken denial of a state-provided peremptory challenge does not,
without more, violate the Federal Constitution. See, e. g., Engle v.
Isaac, 456 U. S. 107, 121, n. 21. The Due Process Clause safeguards not
the meticulous observance of state procedural prescriptions, but “the
fundamental elements of fairness in a criminal trial.” Spencer v. Texas,
385 U. S. 554, 563–564. Pp. 156–158.
(b) The trial judge’s refusal to excuse Gomez did not deprive Rivera
of his constitutional right to a fair trial before an impartial jury. Ross
is instructive. There, a criminal defendant used a peremptory chal
lenge to rectify an Oklahoma trial court’s erroneous denial of a for-cause
challenge, leaving him with one fewer peremptory challenge to use at
his discretion. Even though the trial court’s error might “have resulted
in a jury panel different from that which would otherwise have decided
[Ross’s] case,” 487 U. S., at 87, because no member of the jury as finally
composed was removable for cause, there was no violation of his Sixth
Amendment right to an impartial jury or his Fourteenth Amendment
right to due process, id., at 86–91. This Court reached the same conclu
sion with regard to a federal-court trial in Martinez-Salazar, 528 U. S.,
at 316. Rivera’s efforts to distinguish Ross and Martinez-Salazar
are unavailing. First, although in contrast to Rivera, the Ross and
Martinez-Salazar defendants did not challenge any of the jurors who
were in fact seated, neither Gomez nor any other member of Rivera’s
jury was removable for cause. Thus, like the Ross and Martinez-
Salazar juries, Rivera’s jury was impartial for Sixth Amendment pur
poses. Rivera suggests that due process concerns persist because
Gomez knew he did not want her on the panel, but this Court rejects
the notion that a juror is constitutionally disqualified whenever she is
aware of a challenge. Second, it is not constitutionally significant that,
in contrast to Ross and Martinez-Salazar, the seating of Gomez over

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150 RIVERA v. ILLINOIS
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Rivera’s peremptory challenge was at odds with state law. Errors of
state law do not automatically become violations of due process. As in
Ross and Martinez-Salazar, there is no suggestion here that the trial
judge repeatedly or deliberately misapplied the law or acted in an arbi
trary or irrational manner. Rather, his conduct reflected a good-faith
effort to enforce Batson’s antidiscrimination requirements. To hold
that a one-time, good-faith misapplication of Batson violates due process
would likely discourage trial courts and prosecutors from policing a
defendant’s discriminatory use of peremptory challenges. The Four
teenth Amendment does not compel such a tradeoff. Pp. 158–160.
(c) Rivera errs in insisting that, even without a constitutional viola
tion, the deprivation of a state-provided peremptory challenge requires
reversal as a matter of federal law. He relies on a suggestion in Swain
v. Alabama, 380 U. S. 202, 219, that “[t]he denial or impairment of the
right [to exercise peremptory challenges] is reversible error without a
showing of prejudice.” This statement was disavowed in Martinez-
Salazar, see 528 U. S., at 317, n. 4. Typically, an error is designated as
“structural,” therefore “requir[ing] automatic reversal,” only when “the
error ‘necessarily render[s] a criminal trial fundamentally unfair or an
unreliable vehicle for determining guilt or innocence.’ ” Washington v.
Recuenco, 548 U. S. 212, 218–219. The mistaken denial of a state
provided peremptory challenge does not, in the circumstances here, con
stitute such an error. The automatic reversal precedents Rivera cites
are inapposite. One set of cases involves constitutional errors con
cerning the qualification of the jury or judge. See, e. g., Batson, 476
U. S., at 86, 87. A second set of cases involves circumstances in which
federal judges or tribunals lacked statutory authority to adjudicate the
controversy, resulting in a judgment invalid as a matter of federal law.
See, e. g., Nguyen v. United States, 539 U. S. 69. Nothing in those deci
sions suggests that federal law renders state-court judgments void
whenever there is a state-law defect in a tribunal’s composition. Ab
sent a federal constitutional violation, States are free to decide, as a
matter of state law, that a trial court’s mistaken denial of a peremptory
challenge is reversible error per se or, as the Illinois Supreme Court
implicitly held here, that the improper seating of a competent and unbi
ased juror could rank as a harmless error under state law. Pp. 160–162.
227 Ill. 2d 1, 879 N. E. 2d 876, affirmed.
Ginsburg, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
James K. Leven argued the cause for petitioner. With
him on the briefs were Sarah O’Rourke Schrup, Robert N.
Hochman, and Jeffrey T. Green.

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Opinion of the Court
Michael A. Scodro, Solicitor General of Illinois, argued
the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Lisa
Madigan, Attorney General, Jane Elinor Notz, Deputy So
licitor General, Michael M. Glick and Karl R. Triebel, As
sistant Attorneys General, Alan J. Spellberg, and Judy L.
DeAngelis.
Matthew D. Roberts argued the cause for the United
States as amicus curiae urging affirmance. With him on
the brief were Acting Solicitor General Kneedler, Acting
Assistant Attorney General Glavin, Deputy Solicitor Gen
eral Dreeben, and Deborah Watson.*
Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case concerns the consequences of a state trial court’s
erroneous denial of a defendant’s peremptory challenge to
the seating of a juror in a criminal case. If all seated jurors
*Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the State of
Florida et al. by Bill McCollum, Attorney General of Florida, Scott D.
Makar, Solicitor General, and Courtney Brewer and Craig D. Feiser, Dep
uty Solicitors General, by Richard S. Gebelein, Chief Deputy Attorney
General of Delaware, and by the Attorneys General for their respective
States as follows: Troy King of Alabama, Terry Goddard of Arizona, John
W. Suthers of Colorado, Mark J. Bennett of Hawaii, Lawrence G. Wasden
of Idaho, Gregory F. Zoeller of Indiana, Tom Miller of Iowa, Steve Six of
Kansas, Douglas F. Gansler of Maryland, Michael A. Cox of Michigan,
Chris Koster of Missouri, Steve Bullock of Montana, Kelly A. Ayotte of
New Hampshire, Anne Milgram of New Jersey, Gary K. King of New
Mexico, Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Richard Cordray of Ohio, W. A.
Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, John R. Kroger of Oregon, Thomas W.
Corbett, Jr., of Pennsylvania, Henry D. McMaster of South Carolina, Law
rence E. Long of South Dakota, Robert E. Cooper, Jr., of Tennessee, Greg
Abbott of Texas, Mark L. Shurtleff of Utah, William Sorrell of Vermont,
Robert M. McKenna of Washington, and J. B. Van Hollen of Wisconsin;
for Wayne County, Michigan, by Kym L. Worthy and Timothy A. Baugh
man; for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation by Kent S. Scheidegger;
and for the National District Attorneys Association by Linda T. Coberly
and Gene C. Schaerr.
Abigail K. Hemani, Kevin P. Martin, and Barbara Bergman filed a
brief for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as ami
cus curiae.

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are qualified and unbiased, does the Due Process Clause of
the Fourteenth Amendment nonetheless require automatic
reversal of the defendant’s conviction?
Following a jury trial in an Illinois state court, defendant
petitioner Michael Rivera was convicted of first-degree mur
der and sentenced to a prison term of 85 years. On appeal,
Rivera challenged the trial court’s rejection of his peremp
tory challenge to venire member Deloris Gomez. Gomez sat
on Rivera’s jury and indeed served as the jury’s foreperson.
It is conceded that there was no basis to challenge Gomez
for cause. She met the requirements for jury service, and
Rivera does not contend that she was in fact biased against
him. The Supreme Court of Illinois held that the peremp
tory challenge should have been allowed, but further held
that the error was harmless and therefore did not warrant
reversal of Rivera’s conviction. We affirm the judgment of
the Illinois Supreme Court.
The right to exercise peremptory challenges in state court
is determined by state law. This Court has “long recog
nized” that “peremptory challenges are not of federal consti
tutional dimension.” United States v. Martinez-Salazar,
528 U. S. 304, 311 (2000). States may withhold peremptory
challenges “altogether without impairing the constitutional
guarantee of an impartial jury and a fair trial.” Georgia v.
McCollum, 505 U. S. 42, 57 (1992). Just as state law controls
the existence and exercise of peremptory challenges, so state
law determines the consequences of an erroneous denial of
such a challenge. Accordingly, we have no cause to disturb
the Illinois Supreme Court’s determination that, in the cir
cumstances Rivera’s case presents, the trial court’s error did
not warrant reversal of his conviction.
I
Rivera was charged with first-degree murder in the Cir
cuit Court of Cook County, Illinois. The State alleged that
Rivera, who is Hispanic, shot and killed Marcus Lee, a 16

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year-old African-American, after mistaking Lee for a mem
ber of a rival gang.
During jury selection, Rivera’s counsel questioned pro
spective juror Deloris Gomez, a business office supervisor at
Cook County Hospital’s outpatient orthopedic clinic. App.
32–33. Gomez stated that she sometimes interacted with
patients during the check-in process and acknowledged that
Cook County Hospital treats many gunshot victims. She
maintained, however, that her work experience would not
affect her ability to be impartial. After questioning Gomez,
Rivera’s counsel sought to use a peremptory challenge to ex
cuse her. Id., at 33. At that point in the jury’s selection,
Rivera had already used three peremptory challenges. Two
of the three were exercised against women; one of the two
women thus eliminated was African-American. Illinois law
affords each side seven peremptory challenges. See Ill. Sup.
Ct. Rule 434(d) (West 2006).
Rather than dismissing Gomez, the trial judge called coun
sel to chambers, where he expressed concern that the de
fense was discriminating against Gomez. App. 34– 36.
Under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79 (1986), and later de
cisions building upon Batson, parties are constitutionally
prohibited from exercising peremptory challenges to exclude
jurors on the basis of race, ethnicity, or sex. Without speci
fying the type of discrimination he suspected or the reasons
for his concern, the judge directed Rivera’s counsel to state
his reasons for excusing Gomez. Counsel responded, first,
that Gomez saw victims of violent crime on a daily basis.
Counsel next added that he was “pulled in two different
ways” because Gomez had “some kind of Hispanic connection
given her name.” App. 34. At that point, the judge inter
jected that Gomez “appears to be an African American”—
the second “African American female” the defense had
struck. Id., at 34–35. Dissatisfied with counsel’s proffered
reasons, the judge denied the challenge to Gomez, but agreed
to allow counsel to question Gomez further.

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After asking Gomez additional questions about her work
at the hospital, Rivera’s counsel renewed his challenge.
Counsel observed, outside the jury’s presence, that most of
the jurors already seated were women. Counsel said he
hoped to “get some impact from possibly other men in the
case.” Id., at 39. The court reaffirmed its earlier ruling,
and Gomez was seated on the jury.
Rivera’s case proceeded to trial. The jury, with Gomez as
its foreperson, found Rivera guilty of first-degree murder.
A divided panel of the Appellate Court of Illinois rejected
Rivera’s challenge to the trial judge’s Batson ruling and af
firmed his conviction. 348 Ill. App. 3d 168, 810 N. E. 2d
129 (2004).
The Supreme Court of Illinois accepted Rivera’s petition
for leave to appeal and remanded for further proceedings.
221 Ill. 2d 481, 852 N. E. 2d 771 (2006). A trial judge, the
court held, may raise a Batson issue sua sponte only when
there is a prima facie case of discrimination. Concluding
that the record was insufficient to evaluate the existence of
a prima facie case, the court instructed the trial judge to
articulate the bases for his Batson ruling and, in particular,
to clarify whether the alleged discrimination was on the
basis of race, sex, or both. 221 Ill. 2d, at 515–516, 852 N. E.
2d, at 791.
On remand, the trial judge stated that prima facie evi
dence of sex discrimination—namely, counsel’s two prior
challenges to women and “the nature of [counsel’s] ques
tions”—had prompted him to raise the Batson issue. App.
136. Counsel’s stated reasons for challenging Gomez, the
judge reported, convinced him that “there had been a pur
poseful discrimination against Mrs. Gomez because of her
gender.” Id., at 137.
The case then returned to the Illinois Supreme Court.
Although that court disagreed with the trial judge’s assess
ment, it affirmed Rivera’s conviction. 227 Ill. 2d 1, 879 N. E.

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2d 876 (2007). The Illinois High Court concluded “that the
record fails to support a prima facie case of discrimination
of any kind.” Id., at 15, 879 N. E. 2d, at 884. Accordingly,
the court determined, the trial judge erred, first in demand
ing an explanation from Rivera’s counsel, and next, in deny
ing Rivera’s peremptory challenge of Gomez. Ibid.
Even so, the Illinois Supreme Court rejected Rivera’s ulti
mate argument that the improper seating of Gomez ranked
as “reversible error without a showing of prejudice.” Id.,
at 16, 879 N. E. 2d, at 885 (quoting Swain v. Alabama, 380
U. S. 202, 219 (1965)). Citing this Court’s guiding decisions,
the Illinois court observed that “the Constitution does not
confer a right to peremptory challenges.” 227 Ill. 2d, at 17,
879 N. E. 2d, at 885 (quoting Batson, 476 U. S., at 91). Al
though “peremptory challenges are ‘one means of assuring
the selection of a qualified and unbiased jury,’ ” the court
explained, they are not “indispensable to a fair trial.” 227
Ill. 2d, at 16, 879 N. E. 2d, at 885 (quoting Batson, 476
U. S., at 91).
Accordingly, the court held, the denial of Rivera’s peremp
tory challenge did not qualify as a structural error requiring
automatic reversal. See 227 Ill. 2d, at 19–20, 879 N. E. 2d,
at 887 (citing Washington v. Recuenco, 548 U. S. 212, 218–219
(2006)). The court saw no indication that Rivera had been
“tried before a biased jury, or even one biased juror.” 227
Ill. 2d, at 20, 879 N. E. 2d, at 887. In that regard, the court
stressed, Rivera did “not suggest that Gomez was subject to
excusal for cause.” Ibid.
Relying on both federal and state precedents, the court
proceeded to consider whether it was “clear beyond a reason
able doubt that a rational jury would have found [Rivera]
guilty absent the error.” Id., at 21, 879 N. E. 2d, at 887
(quoting Neder v. United States, 527 U. S. 1, 18 (1999)).
After reviewing the trial record, the court concluded that
Gomez’s presence on the jury did not prejudice Rivera be

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cause “any rational trier of fact would have found [Rivera]
guilty of murder on the evidence adduced at trial.” 227 Ill.
2d, at 26, 879 N. E. 2d, at 890.
Having held the error harmless beyond a reasonable
doubt, the court added that it “need not decide whether the
erroneous denial of a peremptory challenge is an error of
constitutional dimension in these circumstances.” Id., at 27,
879 N. E. 2d, at 891. This comment, it appears, related to
Rivera’s arguments that, even absent a freestanding consti
tutional entitlement to peremptory challenges, the inclusion
of Gomez on his jury violated his Fourteenth Amendment
right to due process of law.
We granted certiorari, 554 U. S. 945 (2008), to resolve an
apparent conflict among state high courts over whether the
erroneous denial of a peremptory challenge requires auto
matic reversal of a defendant’s conviction as a matter of fed
eral law. Compare Angus v. State, 695 N. W. 2d 109, 118
(Minn. 2005) (applying automatic reversal rule); State v.
Vreen, 143 Wash. 2d 923, 927–932, 26 P. 3d 236, 238–240 (2001)
(same), with People v. Bell, 473 Mich. 275, 292–299, 702 N. W.
2d 128, 138–141 (2005) (rejecting automatic reversal rule and
looking to state law to determine the consequences of an
erroneous denial of a peremptory challenge); 227 Ill. 2d, at
15–27, 879 N. E. 2d, at 884–891 (case below). We now affirm
the judgment of the Supreme Court of Illinois.
II
The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,
Rivera maintains, requires reversal whenever a criminal de
fendant’s peremptory challenge is erroneously denied. Ri
vera recalls the ancient lineage of the peremptory challenge
and observes that the challenge has long been lauded as a
means to guard against latent bias and to secure “the consti
tutional end of an impartial jury and a fair trial.” McCol
lum, 505 U. S., at 57. When a trial court fails to dismiss a
lawfully challenged juror, Rivera asserts, it commits struc

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tural error: The jury becomes an illegally constituted tribu
nal, and any verdict it renders is per se invalid. According
to Rivera, this holds true even if the Constitution does
not itself mandate peremptory challenges, because criminal
defendants have a constitutionally protected liberty inter
est in their state-provided peremptory challenge rights.
Cf. Evitts v. Lucey, 469 U. S. 387, 393 (1985) (although “the
Constitution does not require States to grant appeals as of
right to criminal defendants,” States that provide such ap
peals “must comport with the demands of the Due Process
and Equal Protection Clauses”).
The improper seating of a juror, Rivera insists, is not ame
nable to harmless-error analysis because it is impossible to
ascertain how a properly constituted jury—here, one without
juror Gomez—would have decided his case. Thus, he urges,
whatever the constitutional status of peremptory challenges,
automatic reversal must be the rule as a matter of federal
law.
Rivera’s arguments do not withstand scrutiny. If a de
fendant is tried before a qualified jury composed of individu
als not challengeable for cause, the loss of a peremptory chal
lenge due to a state court’s good-faith error is not a matter
of federal constitutional concern. Rather, it is a matter for
the State to address under its own laws.
As Rivera acknowledges, Brief for Petitioner 38, this
Court has consistently held that there is no freestanding
constitutional right to peremptory challenges. See, e. g.,
Martinez-Salazar, 528 U. S., at 311. We have characterized
peremptory challenges as “a creature of statute,” Ross v.
Oklahoma, 487 U. S. 81, 89 (1988), and have made clear that
a State may decline to offer them at all, McCollum, 505 U. S.,
at 57. See also Holland v. Illinois, 493 U. S. 474, 482 (1990)
(dismissing the notion “that the requirement of an ‘impartial
jury’ impliedly compels peremptory challenges”). When
States provide peremptory challenges (as all do in some
form), they confer a benefit “beyond the minimum require

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ments of fair [jury] selection,” Frazier v. United States, 335
U. S. 497, 506 (1948), and thus retain discretion to design and
implement their own systems, Ross, 487 U. S., at 89.1
Because peremptory challenges are within the States’
province to grant or withhold, the mistaken denial of a
state-provided peremptory challenge does not, without more,
violate the Federal Constitution. “[A] mere error of state
law,” we have noted, “is not a denial of due process.” Engle
v. Isaac, 456 U. S. 107, 121, n. 21 (1982) (internal quotation
marks omitted). See also Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U. S. 62,
67, 72–73 (1991). The Due Process Clause, our decisions in
struct, safeguards not the meticulous observance of state
procedural prescriptions, but “the fundamental elements of
fairness in a criminal trial.” Spencer v. Texas, 385 U. S. 554,
563–564 (1967).
The trial judge’s refusal to excuse juror Gomez did not
deprive Rivera of his constitutional right to a fair trial before
an impartial jury. Our decision in Ross is instructive.
Ross, a criminal defendant in Oklahoma, used a peremptory
challenge to rectify the trial court’s erroneous denial of a
for-cause challenge, leaving him with one fewer peremptory
challenge to use at his discretion. The trial court’s error,
we acknowledged, “may have resulted in a jury panel differ
ent from that which would otherwise have decided [Ross’s]
case.” 487 U. S., at 87. But because no member of the jury
as finally composed was removable for cause, we found no
violation of Ross’s Sixth Amendment right to an impartial
jury or his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process.
Id., at 86–91.
We encountered a similar situation in Martinez-Salazar
and reached the same conclusion. Martinez-Salazar, who
was tried in federal court, was entitled to exercise peremp
1 See Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, State Court Organiza
tion 2004, pp. 228–232 (2006) (Table 41), http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/ bjs/pub/
pdf/sco04.pdf (as visited Mar. 27, 2009, and in Clerk of Court’s case file)
(detailing peremptory challenge rules by State).

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tory challenges pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Proce
dure 24(b). His decision to use one of his peremptory chal
lenges to cure the trial court’s erroneous denial of a for-cause
challenge, we held, did not impair his rights under that Rule.
“[A] principal reason for peremptories,” we explained, is “to
help secure the constitutional guarantee of trial by an impar
tial jury.” 528 U. S., at 316. Having “received precisely
what federal law provided,” and having been tried “by a jury
on which no biased juror sat,” Martinez-Salazar could not
“tenably assert any violation of his . . . right to due process.”
Id., at 307, 317.
Rivera’s efforts to distinguish Ross and Martinez-Salazar
are unavailing. First, Rivera observes, the defendants in
Ross and Martinez-Salazar did not challenge any of the ju
rors who were in fact seated. In contrast, Rivera attempted
to exercise a peremptory challenge against a specific per
son—Gomez—whom he perceived to be unfavorable to his
cause. But, as Rivera recognizes, neither Gomez nor any
other member of his jury was removable for cause. See
Tr. of Oral Arg. 9. Thus, like the juries in Ross and
Martinez-Salazar, Rivera’s jury was impartial for Sixth
Amendment purposes. Rivera suggests that due process
concerns persist because Gomez knew he did not want her on
the panel. Gomez, however, was not privy to the in camera
discussions concerning Rivera’s attempt to exercise a pe
remptory strike against her. See supra, at 153. We reject
the notion that a juror is constitutionally disqualified when
ever she is aware that a party has challenged her. Were the
rule otherwise, a party could circumvent Batson by insisting
in open court that a trial court dismiss a juror even though
the party’s peremptory challenge was discriminatory. Or a
party could obtain a juror’s dismissal simply by making in
her presence a baseless for-cause challenge. Due process
does not require such counterintuitive results.
Second, it is not constitutionally significant that the seat
ing of Gomez over Rivera’s peremptory challenge was at

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odds with state law. The defendants in Ross and Martinez-
Salazar, Rivera emphasizes, were not denied their peremp
tory challenge rights under applicable law—state law in
Ross and the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure in
Martinez-Salazar. But as we have already explained,
supra, at 157–159, errors of state law do not automatically
become violations of due process. As in Ross and
Martinez-Salazar, there is no suggestion here that the trial
judge repeatedly or deliberately misapplied the law or acted
in an arbitrary or irrational manner. Martinez-Salazar, 528
U. S., at 316; Ross, 487 U. S., at 91, n. 5. Rather, the trial
judge’s conduct reflected a good-faith, if arguably overzeal
ous, effort to enforce the antidiscrimination requirements
of our Batson-related precedents. To hold that a one-time,
good-faith misapplication of Batson violates due process
would likely discourage trial courts and prosecutors from po
licing a criminal defendant’s discriminatory use of peremp
tory challenges. The Fourteenth Amendment does not com
pel such a tradeoff.
Rivera insists that, even without a constitutional violation,
the deprivation of a state-provided peremptory challenge re
quires reversal as a matter of federal law. We disagree.
Rivera relies in part on Swain, 380 U. S. 202, which sug
gested that “[t]he denial or impairment of the right [to exer
cise peremptory challenges] is reversible error without a
showing of prejudice.” Id., at 219. We disavowed this
statement in Martinez-Salazar, observing, albeit in dicta,
“that the oft-quoted language in Swain was not only unnec
essary to the decision in that case . . . but was founded on a
series of our early cases decided long before the adoption of
harmless-error review.” 528 U. S., at 317, n. 4. As our re
cent decisions make clear, we typically designate an error as
“structural,” therefore “requir[ing] automatic reversal,” only
when “the error ‘necessarily render[s] a criminal trial funda
mentally unfair or an unreliable vehicle for determining guilt
or innocence.’ ” Recuenco, 548 U. S., at 218–219 (quoting

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Cite as: 556 U. S. 148 (2009) 161
Opinion of the Court
Neder, 527 U. S., at 9). The mistaken denial of a state
provided peremptory challenge does not, at least in the cir
cumstances we confront here, constitute an error of that
character.
The automatic reversal precedents Rivera cites are inap
posite. One set of cases involves constitutional errors con
cerning the qualification of the jury or judge. In Batson,
for example, we held that the unlawful exclusion of jurors
based on race requires reversal because it “violates a defend
ant’s right to equal protection,” “unconstitutionally discrimi
nate[s] against the excluded juror,” and “undermine[s] public
confidence in the fairness of our system of justice.” 476
U. S., at 86, 87. Similarly, dismissal of a juror in violation of
Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U. S. 510 (1968),2 we have held,
is constitutional error that requires vacation of a death sen
tence. See Gray v. Mississippi, 481 U. S. 648 (1987). See
also Gomez v. United States, 490 U. S. 858, 876 (1989)
(“Among those basic fair trial rights that can never be
treated as harmless is a defendant’s right to an impartial
adjudicator, be it judge or jury.” (internal quotation marks
omitted)).
A second set of cases involves circumstances in which fed
eral judges or tribunals lacked statutory authority to adjudi
cate the controversy. We have held the resulting judgment
in such cases invalid as a matter of federal law. See, e. g.,
Nguyen v. United States, 539 U. S. 69 (2003); Wingo v. Wed
ding, 418 U. S. 461 (1974). Nothing in these decisions sug
gests that federal law renders state-court judgments void
whenever there is a state-law defect in a tribunal’s composi
tion. Absent a federal constitutional violation, States retain
the prerogative to decide whether such errors deprive a tri
2 Under Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U. S. 510 (1968), “a sentence of
death cannot be carried out if the jury that imposed or recommended it
was chosen by excluding veniremen for cause simply because they voiced
general objections to the death penalty or expressed conscientious or reli
gious scruples against its infliction.” Id., at 522.

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162 RIVERA v. ILLINOIS
Opinion of the Court
bunal of its lawful authority and thus require automatic re
versal. States are free to decide, as a matter of state law,
that a trial court’s mistaken denial of a peremptory challenge
is reversible error per se. Or they may conclude, as the Su
preme Court of Illinois implicitly did here, that the improper
seating of a competent and unbiased juror does not convert
the jury into an ultra vires tribunal; therefore the error
could rank as harmless under state law.
In sum, Rivera received precisely what due process re
quired: a fair trial before an impartial and properly in
structed jury, which found him guilty of every element of the
charged offense.
* * *
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Supreme
Court of Illinois is
Affirmed.