In the 1990 case of Dionisio Hernandez v. New York, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a prosecutor's use of peremptory challenges to exclude bilingual Hispanic jurors did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The defendant, Dionisio Hernandez, was convicted for drug offenses by a jury with no Spanish-speaking members despite his argument that this violated his right to an impartial jury and equal protection under law. The court held in a 6-3 decision that while using race or ethnicity as grounds for challenging potential jurors is unconstitutional, language proficiency does not fall into these categories and can be considered relevant to trial proceedings. Therefore, excluding individuals based on their ability to speak another language does not constitute discrimination.

In the dissenting opinion for Dionisio Hernandez v. New York, Justice Marshall argued that the prosecutor's use of peremptory challenges to exclude bilingual Spanish-English speakers from the jury was a violation of equal protection rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. He contended that language ability could not be used as a proxy for impartiality or bias and criticized majority’s decision which allowed prosecutors to dismiss potential jurors based on their linguistic abilities. Furthermore, he expressed concern about how this ruling might impact other minority groups who speak languages other than English at home. According to him, such practices would undermine public confidence in justice system by allowing discrimination against certain racial or ethnic groups in jury selection process.