Petitioner Edmonson sued respondent Leesville Concrete Co. in the District Court, alleging that Leesvilles negligence had caused him personal injury. During voir dire, Leesville used two of its three peremptory challenges authorized by statute to remove black persons from the prospective jury. Citing Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, Edmonson, who is black, requested that the court require Leesville to articulate a race-neutral explanation for the peremptory strikes. The court refused on the ground that Batson does not apply in civil proceedings, and the impaneled jury, which consisted of 11 white persons and 1 black, rendered a verdict unfavorable to Edmonson. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that a private litigant in a civil case can exercise peremptory challenges without accountability for alleged racial classifications.

Held:

A private litigant in a civil case may not use peremptory challenges to exclude jurors on account of race. Pp. 618-631.

(a) Race-based exclusion of potential jurors in a civil case violates the excluded persons equal protection rights. Cf., e.g., Powers v. Ohio, 499 U.S. 400, 402. Although the conduct of private parties lies beyond the Constitutions scope in most instances, Leesvilles exercise of peremptory challenges was pursuant to a course of state action, and is therefore subject to constitutional requirements under the analytical framework set forth in Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U.S. 922, 939-942. First, the claimed constitutional deprivation results from the exercise of a right or privilege having its source in state authority, since Leesville would not have been able to engage in the alleged discriminatory acts without 28 U.S.C. 1870, which authorizes the use of peremptory challenges in civil cases. Second, Leesville must in all fairness be deemed a government actor in its use of peremptory challenges. Leesville has made extensive use of government procedures with the overt, significant assistance of the government, see, e.g., Tulsa Professional Collection Services, Inc. v. Pope, 485 U.S. 478, 486, in that peremptory challenges have no utility outside the jury trial system, which is created and governed by an elaborate set of statutory provisions and administered solely by government officials, including the trial judge, himself a state actor, who exercises substantial control over voir dire and effects [500 U.S. 614, 615] the final and practical denial of the excluded individuals opportunity to serve on the petit jury by discharging him or her. Moreover, the action in question involves the performance of a traditional governmental function, see, e.g., Terry v. Adams, 345 U.S. 461, since the peremptory challenge is used in selecting the jury, an entity that is a quintessential governmental body having no attributes of a private actor. Furthermore, the injury allegedly caused by Leesvilles use of peremptory challenges is aggravated in a unique way by the incidents of governmental authority, see Shelley v. Kramer, 334 U.S. 1, since the courtroom is a real expression of the governments constitutional authority, and racial exclusion within its confines compounds the racial insult inherent in judging a citizen by the color of his or her skin. Pp. 618-628.

(b) A private civil litigant may raise the equal protection claim of a person whom the opposing party has excluded from jury service on account of race. Just as in the criminal context, see Powers, supra, all three of the requirements for third-party standing are satisfied in the civil context. First, there is no reason to believe that the daunting barriers to suit by an excluded criminal juror, see id., at 414, would be any less imposing simply because the person was excluded from civil jury service. Second, the relation between the excluded venireperson and the litigant challenging the excl