OPINION ON APPELLANT’S PETITION FOR DISCRETIONARY REVIEW
CLINTON, Judge.
Appellant was convicted of the offense of burglary of a vehicle under V.T.C.A. Penal Code, § 30.04. Enhanced punishment was assessed at thirteen years confinement. Appellant raised a number of claims on appeal relating to alleged ineffectiveness of his trial counsel for failing to preserve error under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), and the trial court’s denial of a means for him to perfect this ineffective counsel claim for appeal. The court of appeals held that the record was sufficient to show appellant could not in any event have met the “prejudice” prong of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), and Hernandez v. State, 726 S.W.2d 53 (Tex.Cr.App.1986), and affirmed the conviction. Batiste v. State, 834 S.W.2d 460 (Tex.App.—Houston [14th] 1992). In his petition for discretionary review, appellant now argues he should not be required to meet the “prejudice” prong of Strickland/Hemandez in order to establish ineffective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment and Article I, § 10 of the Texas Constitution for failure to preserve Batson error. We granted his petition to examine this contention. Tex.R.App.Pro., Rule 200(c)(2).
I.
Appellant raised the issue of ineffective assistance of counsel for failure to preserve Batson error in a motion for new trial. The trial court denied appellant a hearing on the motion, and thus appellant was given no opportunity to establish that veniremen were indeed struck from, his jury panel in violation of Batson. Appellant prepared a bill of exception, see 834 S.W.2d at 462-64, but the trial court neither accepted this bill, nor filed one of its own.
On appeal appellant argued, inter alia, both that he suffered ineffective assistance of counsel in that his trial lawyer failed to preserve Batson error, and that the trial court erred in denying him a hearing or bill of exception to establish that the Batson objection not preserved would have been a valid one. The court of appeals rejected both claims. From the record of the trial itself the court of appeals concluded that trial counsel had indeed been deficient in failing to object on the basis of Batson, id., at 466;1 however, this deficiency could not have amounted to a violation of the Sixth Amendment or Article I, § 10 guarantees of effective assistance of counsel because in any event there was no reasonable probability that even a jury composed in part of the black veniremen that were struck would have rendered a different verdict on the evidence presented. Id., at 466. Thus, the trial court could have concluded without benefit of a hearing that no ineffective assistance of counsel occurred. Id., at 464-65 & 466.
In his petition for discretionary review appellant argues that the court of appeals erred to apply the “prejudice” prong of the test for ineffective assistance of counsel announced in Strickland and adopted by this Court in Hernandez. Appellant observes that when a violation of Batson is established on appeal, appellate courts have routinely reversed the conviction without recourse to an inquiry whether the error was harmless. E.g., Wright v. State, 832 S.W.2d 601 (Tex.Cr.App.1992). Appellant contends that we should likewise decline to impose the “prejudice” prong of the test for ineffective assistance of counsel. For the reasons that follow, we reject this contention.
II.
In essence, appellant would have this Court hold that trial counsel should be deemed ineffective per se if he forfeits any constitutional error that has been held immune from a harm analysis. His contention [11]*11thus involves a confluence of constitutional principles announced in Batson, supra, in Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), and in Strickland, supra. We begin by examining each of these principles in turn.
A Batson
In the landmark case of Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303, 25 L.Ed. 664 (1880), the United States Supreme Court declared that a statute rendering blacks incompetent to serve on grand or petit juries violated a black defendant’s right to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court reasoned by way of rhetorical question, thus:
“It is not easy to comprehend how it can be said that while every white man is entitled to a trial by a jury selected from persons of his own race or color, or, rather, selected without discrimination against his color, and a negro is not, the latter is equally protected by the law with the former. Is not protection of life and liberty against race or color prejudice, a right, a legal right, under the constitutional Amendment? And how can it be maintained that compelling a colored man to submit to a trial for his life by a jury drawn from a panel from which the State has expressly excluded every man of his race, because of color alone, however well qualified in other respects, is not a denial to him of equal legal protection?”
100 U.S. at 309, L.Ed. at 666. In the century that followed the Court vitiated a number of state criminal prosecutions on the basis that state law or official state action effectively precluded, limited, or otherwise discriminated against service of blacks on grand or petit juries in criminal proceedings that resulted in the convictions of black defendants. E.g., Neal v. Delaware, 103 U.S. 370, 26 L.Ed. 567 (1881); Norris v. Alabama, 294 U.S. 587, 55 S.Ct. 579, 79 L.Ed. 1074 (1935); Cassell v. Texas, 339 U.S. 282, 70 S.Ct. 629, 94 L.Ed. 839 (1950).
The Supreme Court indicated for the first time in Swain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202, 85 S.Ct. 824, 13 L.Ed.2d 759 (1965), that systematic use of peremptory challenges by the State to exclude blacks from petit juries in the criminal prosecution of a black defendants could likewise constitute discrimination in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. The Court expressly declined to hold in Swain, however, that an equal protection violation could be established by showing the prosecutor exercised his peremptory challenges in a particular case to strike black veniremen in the trial of a black defendant, in deference to the time-honored use of peremptory challenges to exclude veniremen on the basis of intuitive judgments that may defy rational explication. Twenty-one years later, in Batson v. Kentucky, supra, the Court reconsidered its holding in Swain that a violation of equal protection need be predicated on more than evidence of racial discrimination in the exercise of peremptories in a particular case. For the first time the Court held that a Fourteenth Amendment claim could be predicated on evidence that the prosecutor peremptorily struck as few as a single black veniremen in a particular case on no other basis than the unfounded assumption that he would harbor a bias in favor of a criminal defendant of his own race.
The Court observed in Batson that use of peremptory challenges to exclude black veniremen solely on account of their race injured not only the defendant on trial, but also the veniremen themselves, and indeed, the “entire community.” 476 U.S. at 86-88, 106 S.Ct. at 1717-1718, 90 L.Ed.2d at 80-82. In speaking of the harm visited upon the defendant himself, the Court opined:
“Purposeful racial discrimination in selection of the venire violates a defendant’s right to equal protection because it denies him the protection that a trial by jury is intended to secure. ‘The very idea of a jury is a body ... composed of the peers or equals of the person whose rights it is selected or summoned to determine; that is, of his neighbors, fellows, associates, persons having the same legal status in society as that which he holds.’ Strauder, supra, [100 U.S.] at 308, 25 L.Ed. 664; see Carter v. Jury Comm’n of Greene County, 396 U.S. 320, 330, 24 L.Ed.2d 549, 90 S.Ct. 518 (1970). The petit jury has occupied a central position in our system of justice by [12]*12safeguarding a person accused of crime against arbitrary exercise of power by prosecutor or judge. Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 156, 20 L.Ed.2d 491, 88 S.Ct. 1444 (1968). Those on the venire must be ‘indifferently chosen,’ to secure the defendant’s right under the Fourteenth Amendment to ‘protection of life and liberty against race or color prejudice.’ Strauder, supra, [100 U.S.] at 309, 25 L.Ed. 664.”
476 U.S. at 86-87, 106 S.Ct. at 1717-1718, 90 L.Ed.2d at 80-81 (footnotes omitted).
In cases decided since Batson, the Supreme Court has de-emphasized the notion that it is the defendant who suffers a violation of equal protection when members of a minority are removed from the venire by peremptory challenge on the basis of their minority status alone. Instead, in recent years the Court has conferred third party standing upon non-minorities to raise equal protection claims on behalf of the excluded minority veniremen themselves. Powers v. Ohio, 499 U.S. 400, 111 S.Ct. 1364, 113 L.Ed.2d 411 (1991). Moreover, the Court has held that civil litigants also have standing to raise the equal protection rights of minority veniremen, Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., Inc., 500 U.S. 614, 111 S.Ct. 2077, 114 L.Ed.2d 660 (1991), as does the State in a criminal prosecution, Georgia v. McCollum, 505 U.S.-, 112 S.Ct. 2348, 120 L.Ed.2d 33 (1992). See also Curry v. Bowman, 885 S.W.2d 421 (Tex.Cr.App.1993).2 The Court has even held, albeit in context of a Sixth Amendment “fair-cross-section” claim, that peremptory exclusion of veniremen on account of race may contribute to the fairness of trial to the extent that it as likely as not contributes to the attainment of an impartial jury. Holland v. Illinois, 493 U.S. 474, 110 S.Ct. 803, 107 L.Ed.2d 905 (1990). Cf. Swain v. Alabama, supra, 380 U.S. at 220-221, 85 S.Ct. at 836, 13 L.Ed.2d at 772-773 (exclusion on the basis of race helps assure impartiality of jury inasmuch as “the question a prosecutor or defense counsel must decide is not whether a juror of a particular race or nationality is in fact partial, but whether one from a different group is less likely to be.”).
This is not to say that the Supreme Court has completely lost sight of the essential holdings of Strauder, and of Batson itself, viz: that racial discrimination against veniremen in the exercise of peremptory challenges violates the equal protection rights of the same-race defendant who is on trial. But the Court has never articulated exactly why this equal protection violation impugns the validity of an otherwise error-free criminal conviction. Indeed, if we are to accept at face value the Supreme Court’s pronouncements that, e.g., “[r]ace cannot be a proxy for determining juror bias or competency[,]” Powers v. Ohio, 499 U.S. at 410, 111 S.Ct. at 1370, 113 L.Ed.2d at 424, then we must assume that even a jury from which minority veniremen have been peremptorily struck in violation of the Equal Protection Clause, if it is otherwise unobjectionable, is capable of rendering a verdict — even as to a defendant who is a member of the same minority as the veniremen wrongfully struck — that is in all things impartial. Without saying precisely how, the Court has nevertheless observed that, e.g., “racial discrimination in the selection of jurors ... places the fairness of a criminal proceeding in doubt.” Id., at 411, 111 S.Ct. at 1371, 113 L.Ed.2d at 425. It also “invites cynicism respecting the jury’s neutrality and its obligation to adhere to the law.” Id., at 412, 111 S.Ct. at 1371, 113 L.Ed.2d at 426. Finally, it “call[s] in question” the makeup of the petit jury, “and the irregularity may pervade all the proceedings that follow.” Id., at 413, 111 S.Ct. at 1372, 113 L.Ed.2d at 426. See also, Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., Inc., supra, 500 U.S. at 628 & 630, 111 S.Ct. at 2087 & 2088, 114 L.Ed.2d at 678 & 679.
B. Chapman
In Chapman v. California, supra, the Supreme Court refused to hold “that all federal constitutional errors, regardless of the facts [13]*13and circumstances, must always be deemed harmful.” 386 U.S. at 21, 87 S.Ct. at 827, 17 L.Ed.2d at 709. While noting that “there are some constitutional rights so basic to a fair trial that their infraction can never be treated as harmless error,” id., at 23, 87 S.Ct. at 827-28, 17 L.Ed.2d at 710, the Court concluded “that there may be some constitutional errors which in the setting of a particular case are so unimportant and insignificant that they may, consistent with the Federal Constitution, be deemed harmless, not requiring automatic reversal of the conviction.” Id., at 22, 87 S.Ct. at 827, 17 L.Ed.2d at 709. Neither the Supreme Court nor this Court has ever squarely addressed the question whether Batson error is subject to a constitutional harm analysis.
The Supreme Court has decided that racial discrimination in the process of selecting a grand jury — an equal protection violation that also stems from the seminal holding of Strauder v. West Virginia, supra — is not the kind of constitutional error subject to a harm analysis under Chapman. Vasquez v. Hillery, 474 U.S. 254, 106 S.Ct. 617, 88 L.Ed.2d 598 (1986). The Court held the error to be of a sort as to call into question the objectivity of the institutional factfinder, concluding that “discrimination in the grand jury undermines the structural integrity of the criminal tribunal itself, and is not amenable to harmless-error review.” Id., at 263-64, 106 S.Ct. at 623, 88 L.Ed.2d at 609. See Rose v. Mitchell, 443 U.S. 545, 99 S.Ct. 2993, 61 L.Ed.2d 739 (1979). Cf. Cassell v. Texas, supra (holding that discrimination in selection of grand jury was reversible error without resort to an analysis for substantial prejudice, despite vigorous dissent by Justice Jackson arguing that the error was harmless).
Since Vasquez was decided, the Supreme Court has modified its vocabulary somewhat in distinguishing those constitutional defects susceptible to a Chapman harmless error analysis from those that are not. Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 111 S.Ct. 1246, 113 L.Ed.2d 302 (1991). The methodology for determining applicability of Chapman is now to categorize the constitutional violation as either “trial error” or as “structural defect.” The Chapman test applies to that great majority of constitutional violations that fall in the category of trial error. It does not apply, however, to:
“structural defects in the constitution of the trial mechanism, which defy analysis by ‘harmless error’ standards. The entire conduct of the trial from beginning to end is obviously affected by the absence of counsel for a criminal defendant, just as it is by the presence on the bench of a judge who is not impartial. Since our decision in Chapman, other cases have added to the category of constitutional errors which are not subject to harmless error the following: unlawful exclusion of members of the defendant’s race from a grand jury, Vasquez v. Hillery, [supra].... Each of these constitutional deprivations is a similar structural defect affecting the framework within which the trial proceeds, rather than simply an error in the trial itself. “Without these basic protections, a criminal trial cannot reliably serve its function as a vehicle for determination of guilt or innocence, and no criminal punishment may be regarded as fundamentally fair.’ [Rose v. Clark], 478 U.S. [570], at 577-578, 106 S.Ct. [3101], at 3106, 92 L.Ed.2d [460], at 470 [ (1986) ] (citation omitted).”
499 U.S. at 309-310, 111 S.Ct. at 1265, 113 L.Ed.2d at 331. Given this language, and the fact that the description of purposeful discrimination in the selection of grand jurors in Vasquez itself as error that goes to the “structural integrity of the criminal tribunal,” we doubt the Supreme Court will change its view of the susceptibility of jury selection procedures that violate equal protection to harmless error analysis in light of Fulminante.3 We therefore assume, without [14]*14deciding, that Batson error is not amenable to a Chapman analysis for harmless error.
C. Strickland
Whether the Supreme Court would also hold that defense counsel’s failure to assert Batson error is not subject to the “prejudice” prong of the test for ineffective assistance of counsel under Strickland v. Washington, supra, however, is a different matter. In Strickland the Supreme Court held that in order to make out a Sixth Amendment claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, the defendant must show both that his lawyer was deficient, and that:
“the deficient performance prejudiced the defense. This requires showing that counsel’s errors were so serious as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial, a trial whose result is reliable. Unless a defendant makes both showings, it cannot be said that the conviction ... resulted from a breakdown in the adversary process that renders the result unreliable.”
466 U.S. at 687, 104 S.Ct. at 2064, 80 L.Ed.2d at 693. Elaborating on the latter, “prejudice” prong of ineffective counsel, the Court observed that “[i]t is not enough for the defendant to show that the errors had some conceivable effect on the outcome of the proceeding.” Id., at 693, 104 U.S. at 2067, 80 L.Ed.2d at 697. Instead, the defendant must show that:
“there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different. A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome.”
Id., at 694, 104 S.Ct. at 2068, 80 L.Ed.2d at 698.
At one point in its opinion in Strickland the Supreme Court characterized the “prejudice” prong as a “general requirement.” Id., at 693, 104 S.Ct. at 2067, 80 L.Ed.2d at 697. The Court acknowledged that with some varieties of Sixth Amendment violation, such as the actual or constructive denial of counsel altogether at a critical stage of the criminal proceeding, or an actual conflict of interest on the part of defense counsel, prejudice is presumed. This is because “[prejudice in these circumstances is so likely that case by case inquiry into prejudice is not worth the cost.” Id., at 692, 104 S.Ct. at 2067, 80 L.Ed.2d at 696. Appellant contends that al[15]*15lowing the State to use racially discriminatory criteria in the exercise of its peremptory challenges in picking his petit jury introduced a “structural” defect into his trial, and this means that counsel’s failure to preserve Batson error was a deficiency so likely to result in the denial of a fair trial that we should declare it also to be exempt from the “prejudice” prong of Strickland. To this contention we now turn.
III.
In effect appellant would have us hold that failure to preserve any “structural defect” of constitutional dimension is so likely to skew the fairness of trial that case by case determination of the ultimate fairness of any individual trial is not worth the candle. While many structural defects might in fact so adversely impact ultimate fairness of the trial as to justify presuming prejudice, we decline to hold that every structural defect is therefore per se exempt from the “prejudice” prong of Strickland. In particular, we hold that the likelihood that failure of counsel to ensure that racial discrimination did not take place in jury selection will render trial unfair is not so great as to justify exempting ineffective counsel claims for lack of a Batson objection from Strickland ’s “prejudice” prong.
Appellant argues that the common goal of both the equal protection guarantee that members of an accused’s race are not excluded from jury service because of their race and the Sixth Amendment guarantee of effective assistance of counsel is the fairness of trials. Strickland does indeed recognize that the Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel exists in order to guarantee the fairness of trial. By this the Supreme Court in Strickland meant that competent counsel is necessary to ensure that our adversarial system of criminal justice operates in the way it was envisioned, so that we may be confident the results are reliable. “The benchmark for judging any claim of ineffectiveness must be whether counsel’s conduct so undermined the proper functioning of the adversarial process that the trial cannot be relied on as having produced a just result.” 466 U.S. at 686, 104 S.Ct. at 2064, 80 L.Ed.2d at 692-693. For Sixth Amendment purposes, “a fair trial is one in which evidence subject to adversarial testing is presented to an impartial tribunal for resolution of issues defined in advance of the proceeding.” Id., at 685, 104 S.Ct. at 2063, 80 L.Ed.2d at 692.
Judged by this standard, we do not think failure to preserve Batson error so invariably detracts from the fairness of trial as to justify exempting it from the “prejudice” prong of Strickland. The possibility of racial prejudice in the selection of the petit jury affects the adversarial presentation of the case not at all. If anything, it affects only the makeup of the tribunal that hears and adjudges that presentation. As we have said, the Supreme Court has given little indication exactly how Batson error renders the tribunal “unfair” to the defendant. We know that discrimination in jury selection “places ... fairness ... in doubt[,]” “invites cynicism respecting the jury’s neutrality!!,]” and “call[s] in question” the composition of the petit jury. See Powers v. Ohio & Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co. Inc., both supra. But we also know from Holland v. Illinois, supra, that permitting the adversaries to use race as a basis for selecting those “less likely to be” partial to the other side may actually enhance the impartiality of the tribunal. In any event, if race is not an allowable “proxy” for bias, Powers v. Ohio, supra, 499 U.S. at 410, 111 S.Ct. at 1370, 113 L.Ed.2d at 424, we can only conclude that an all white jury— whether it is the product of chance or of racial discrimination in the exercise of peremptory challenges — can nevertheless render a fair and impartial verdict in the trial of a minority defendant. Even if Batson has some intangible effect on the impartiality of the tribunal (by, e.g., removing any apparent judicial imprimatur upon racial discrimination that might communicate to jurors that race is an acceptable basis for decision), at best it merely:
“joins other procedures [viz: challenge for cause practice, and instructions to the jury that it should eschew passion or prejudice in the deliberative process] that protect a defendant’s interest in a neutral factfinder. Those other mechanisms existed prior to [the] decision in Batson, creating a high [16]*16probability that the individual jurors seated in a particular case were free from bias.”
Allen v. Hardy, 478 U.S. 255, at 259, 106 S.Ct. 2878, at 2880-2881, 92 L.Ed.2d 199, at 205 (1986) (footnote omitted). In view of the speculative (at best) impact of discriminatory use of peremptory challenges upon the impartiality of the jury, and the presumed efficacy of “other mechanisms” to insure jury neutrality, we cannot say that a breakdown in the adversarial process from failure to raise Batson error at trial is so likely that an individualized assessment of the fairness of the particular trial is “not worth the cost.” 4
Appellant cites Lockhart v. Fretwell, 506 U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 838, 122 L.Ed.2d 180 (1993), for the proposition that counsel’s failure to preserve Batson error always deprives an accused of a fair trial. In Fretwell the Supreme Court observed that “[ujnreliability or unfairness does not result if the ineffectiveness of counsel does not deprive the defendant of any substantive or procedural right to which the law entitles him.” 506 U.S. at-, 113 S.Ct. at 844, 122 L.Ed.2d at 191. Reasoning conversely from this observation, appellant argues that because he was deprived of the assurance of a jury picked absent the pernicious influence of racial discrimination, his trial was both unreliable and unfair. But we do not take the Supreme Court to have meant in Fretwell that any time a deficiency of counsel actually operates to deprive an accused of a substantive or procedural right, he has necessarily been deprived of a fair trial, so as to justify a presumption of prejudice. Were this the case, then failure of counsel to raise, e.g., a valid hearsay objection would by itself call for a finding of ineffective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment, without recourse to a particular assessment of prejudice.
Appellant also cites Ex parte Yelder, 575 So.2d 137, at 139 (Ala.1991), in which the Supreme Court of Alabama held that “the failure of trial counsel to make a timely Batson objection to a prima facie case of purposeful discrimination by the State in the jury selection process through its use of peremptory challenges is presumptively prejudicial to a defendant.” The Court so held on the strength of a dissenting opinion in the lower appellate court in the same case. There Judge Bowen had opined:
“As Batson itself indicates, and outcome-determinative test simply is not appropriate for a fourteenth amendment juror discrimination claim. If it were used, no appellant could ever prove prejudice without relying on the pernicious assumption that Batson condemns, that is, that if blacks had not been struck from a black defendant’s jury, the defendant would more likely have been found not guilty.”
Yelder v. State, 575 So.2d 131, at 136 (Ala.Cr.App.1990) (Bowen, J., dissenting) (emphasis in the original). We think this reasoning is flawed. It is simply another way of articulating the basic premise of Batson, viz: that the Fourteenth Amendment tolerates no assumptions about juror competence or impartiality, or the lack thereof, on account of race. But if that premise is correct, we see no impediment whatsoever to imposing an outcome-determinative test in deciding whether counsel’s failure to raise Batson rendered the trial “unfair” under the Sixth Amendment. A jury of any racial makeup is presumptively capable of providing the impartial tribunal necessary to ensure proper functioning of the adversarial process. That no defendant may “ever prove prejudice” is a better reason, it seems to us, to reject a standard of presumed prejudice than to embrace it. We do not find the opinions in Yelder persuasive.
[17]*17We conclude that the court of appeals did not err to subject appellant’s claim of ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to raise Batson error to the “prejudice” prong of Strickland.5 Because that is the only question we granted discretionary review in this cause to examine, we leave its other holdings intact. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.