Sponsors (11)
Official title: Amend title 28, United States Code, to prohibit the exclusion of individuals from service on a Federal jury on account of sexual orientation or gender identity.
Introduced June 18, 2025 by Jeanne Shaheen · Last progress June 18, 2025
The bill expands jury inclusiveness and fairness for LGBTQ+ people in federal trials while imposing modest administrative costs and a risk of case-specific litigation or selection delays.
LGBTQ+ prospective jurors: cannot be excluded from federal jury service based on actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity, increasing the representativeness, fairness, and public confidence in federal trials.
Taxpayers and federal courts: may face litigation or challenges over the scope or application of the ban, causing contested motions or occasional delays in jury selection in individual cases.
Federal court personnel: may need additional training or procedural changes to implement non‑discrimination rules during jury selection, creating modest administrative costs and workload adjustments.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Prohibits excluding prospective federal jurors because of actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.
Prohibits excluding people from serving on federal juries because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. It amends the federal jury-selection law to bar striking, challenging, excusing, or otherwise disqualifying prospective jurors for those reasons, ensuring LGBTQ+ people cannot be removed from or denied jury service on that basis. The bill applies nationwide to federal courts and prospective federal jurors; it does not create new funding or set implementation deadlines in the provided text.