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FJP Files Brief Urging Supreme Court to Grant Review in Case Tainted by Gender-Based Jury Discrimination
September 24, 2025 (Washington, D.C.) — Today, Fair and Just Prosecution (FJP) filed an amicus brief in Bryan Christopher Bell & Antwaun Kyral Sims v. State of North Carolina, supporting a petition for a writ of certiorari urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review North Carolina’s handling of serious claims that gender-based discrimination infected jury selection.
The Constitution forbids striking even a single juror for a discriminatory purpose, and prosecutors must safeguard a fair jury process by supporting meaningful appellate or post-conviction review when evidence of discrimination emerges. In Petitioners’ cases, the record includes an admission that a prospective juror was struck based on her gender. For centuries, women were barred by law from serving on juries, and even after those laws were struck down, prosecutors have used peremptory strikes to remove them from the jury pool. Allowing a conviction to stand when the jury selection was corrupted by gender discrimination diminishes progress toward achieving a fair trial and equality under the law.
“Discrimination in jury selection is a clear constitutional violation and a direct assault on the legitimacy of the criminal justice system,” said FJP Executive Director Aramis Ayala. “When a juror is excluded because of gender, the defendant is denied a fair trial, the juror is denied a core democratic right, and the community is left with a verdict that lacks integrity and cannot command trust. Excluding women in particular revives a long and shameful history of barring them from equal participation in public life, compounding the constitutional harm with a profound social one. The Supreme Court must act to correct this injustice and make clear that discriminatory jury selection will not be tolerated.”
FJP’s brief also emphasizes that prosecutors’ ethical obligations continue after conviction; when new evidence reveals an unconstitutional bias in jury selection, prosecutors should facilitate judicial review or agree to appropriate relief rather than invoke novel procedural barriers to shield tainted convictions from review. Reform efforts from across the country have proven that rigorous enforcement of constitutional safeguards in jury selection strengthens the integrity of verdicts without hindering legitimate law enforcement efforts.
FJP urges the Supreme Court to grant the petition for a writ of certiorari and reaffirm that prosecutorial obligations and constitutional guarantees require vigilant prevention, detection, and correction of discriminatory jury selection.