who were treated the same. Other courts are in disagreement about this issue. Compare United States v. Torres-Ramos, 536 F.3d 542, 560 (6th Cir.2008), with Smulls v. Roper, 535 F.3d 853, 865 (8th Cir.2008). Nonetheless, the fact that the state struck two white jurors based on similar justifications, at the very least, tends to support the state court’s finding, as the district court aptly observed. Although we may have reached a different conclusion reviewing this issue in the first instance, Puckett has not met the high standard for habeas relief. The state court’s application of Batson was not unreasonable, and we need not address the state’s other two justifications for striking Hawthorne. See Stevens, 618 F.3d at 498, 500; United States v. Brown, 553 F.3d 768, 796 (5th Cir.2008) (<HOLDING>). IV. Puckett next challenges the state’s use
holding that defendants pretext argument failed because the state offered another legitimate reason for striking the prospective juror holding that age is an acceptable raceneutral reason for striking a prospective juror holding that a reason cannot be proved to be a pretext for discrimination  unless it is shown both that the reason was false and that discrimination was the real reason holding that an employee may establish that the legitimate reason for an employment decision offered by an employer is pretextual by showing by a preponderance of the evidence either that the discrim inatory reason was the true reason motivating the employers conduct or that the profferred legitimate reason was false holding that the plaintiffs argument rebutting the defendants legitimate nondiscriminatory reason on the plaintiffs discrimination claim also rebutted the defendants reason on the plaintiffs retaliation claim because they were the same