In 1975, Billy Taylor challenged his Louisiana conviction because the state had systematically excluded women from jury duty. Women made up 53% of eligible citizens in the district, but almost none served. The Supreme Court ruled in Taylor v. Louisiana that the Sixth Amendment guarantees every defendant a jury drawn from a fair cross-section of the community -- not a hand-picked group that skews toward one race, gender, or background.
The ruling did not mean every jury must perfectly mirror local demographics. States can still set reasonable qualifications -- like requiring jurors to be citizens, speak English, or have no felony convictions. But they can't systematically exclude any recognizable group from the jury pool. The Court explained the reasoning plainly: a jury's job is to bring the common sense of the community into the courtroom, and that only works when the pool reflects who actually lives there. When prosecutors or court systems tilt the pool, they undermine the entire point of trial by jury. Later cases extended this protection, barring attorneys from using peremptory challenges to strike jurors based on race (Batson v. Kentucky, 1986) or gender (J.E.B. v. Alabama, 1994).