NWLC Joins Amicus Brief Filed in the 11th Circuit Opposing Jury Selection that Discriminates Against Women

On December 10, 2025, National Women’s Law Center, Georgia Association for Women Lawyers, and other lawyers and law professors filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Drane v. Warden, a capital case. The brief argues that the prosecution’s peremptory challenges against jurors in the original trial of Leonard Maurice Drane were improperly based on sex stereotypes, which violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and U.S. Supreme Court precedent. The brief reviews the history of women’s inclusion in juries and the core principles of equality that are at stake when coded sex stereotypes are used to discriminate against women in this context. The brief argues that the court should grant relief on Drane’s equal protection claim and order a new trial free from discrimination.