In Alexander v. Louisiana, 405 U. S. 625 (1972), the Supreme Court dealt with a criminal defendant's allegation that members of his race had been invidiously excluded from the grand jury which indicted him in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. In addition to the statistical evidence presented by petitioner in that case, we noted that the State's "selection procedures themselves were not racially neutral." Id., at 630. Once the consideration of race in the decisional process had been established, we held that "the burden of proof shifts to the State to rebut the presumption of unconstitutional action by showing that permissible racially neutral selection criteria and procedures have produced the monochromatic result." Id., at 632.