part of our family tree and that some of our witnesses might have religions of the Muslim faith, just to probe to find out if there’s anybody that had a strong sentiment for or against any of our clients for just that reason.” (Tr. Day 1, 65:15-66:21). Courts have held that a defendant’s heritage does not in and of itself establish a constitutional right to question prospective jurors regarding prejudice. See, e.g., United States v. Ramos, 238 Fed.Appx. 329, 330 (9th Cir.2007) (“Because Ramos’s Mexican heritage, in and of itself, did not trigger a right to question prospective jurors concerning prejudice against Mexican-Americans ... the district court did not abuse its discretion when it disallowed the proposed voir dire.”); United States v. Borders, 270 F.3d 1180, 1183 (8th Cir.2001) (<HOLDING>). Significantly, the crimes at issue in this
holding that trial court abused its discretion in failing to make a proper inquiry of jurors andor failing to strike jurors for cause after jurors explicitly expressed bias holding that a white office was not similarly situated to a black officer who was charged with more offenses than the white officer holding there was no constitutional presumption of juror bias where counsel asked the district court to make an inquiry into potential prejudice because the defendant was black and the prospective jurors were white holding that the white defendants association with a black defendant was not sufficient to give them standing to join in the black defendants batson challenge holding that where the defense peremptorily challenged a prospective juror and the prosecutor merely stated that she would challenge that strike the states objection was sufficient to allow inquiry into whether the juror was being challenged for nonracial reasons where the trial court clearly understood that the objection was that the challenge had been exercised because of the prospective jurors race