the “[preservation of the opportunity to prove actual bias is a guarantee of a defendant’s right to an impartial jury.” Dennis v. United States, 339 U.S. 162, 171-72, 70 S.Ct. 519, 94 L.Ed. 734 (1950), questions directed at potential bias may be constitutionally compelled. For example, when faced with the prospect of racial bias, a federal habeas court must inquire whether “under all of the circumstances presented there was a constitutionally significant likelihood that, absent questioning about racial prejudice, the jurors would not be as ‘indifferent as (they stand) unsworne.’ ” Ristaino v. Ross, 424 U.S. 589, 596, 96 S.Ct. 1017, 47 L.Ed.2d 258 (1976) (quoting Coke on Littleton 155b (19th ed. 1832)); see also Turner v. Murray, 476 U.S. 28, 36-37, 106 S.Ct. 1683, 90 L.Ed.2d 27 (1986) (<HOLDING>). Howev er, the Supreme Court has “stressed the
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 a capital defendant accused of an interracial crime is entitled to have prospective jurors informed of the race of the victim and questioned on the issue of racial bias holding that tire purposeful exclusion of prospective jurors because they are black and female is discrimination on account of both race and gender in direct violation of batson  holding that a criminal defendant can bring a third party challenge to the peremptory striking of jurors based on race whether or not he is of the same race as the jurors who are struck holding that if the reason the victim cannot testify at trial is that the accused murdered her then the accused should be deemed to have forfeited the confrontation right even though the act with which the accused is charged is the same as the one by which he allegedly rendered the witness unavailable