State Case Database
Search State Court Report's database of significant state supreme court decisions and pending cases. Download decisions and briefs for cases that develop state constitutional law. This is a selected database and does not include every state supreme court case. See methodology and "How to Use the State Case Database" for more information.
This database is updated monthly, although individual cases may be updated more frequently. Last updated comprehensively with cases decided through August 2024.
Featured Cases
Genser v. Butler County Board of Elections
Held citizens whose mail-in ballots were disqualified for a failure to return them in the required secrecy envelope have a right to cast a provisional ballot and have it count.
Cincinnati Enquirer v. Bloom
Found the blanket sealing of a juvenile’s delinquency records when the juvenile is found not delinquent — the juvenile equivalent of not guilty — unconstitutional because there was no determination that the harm to the juvenile outweighed the public’s right to access court records
Gonzalez v. Miller
Unanimously affirmed the denial of a district attorney’s effort to dismiss a state Open Records Act request relating to her office’s “failure . . . to effectively prosecute criminal cases, and an open disregard for the laws of the State of Georgia"
Republican National Committee v. Eternal Vigilance Action, Inc
The Georgia Supreme Court left in place a lower court ruling that several controversial new election rules are “illegal, unconstitutional, and void.” The rules would have made election certification discretionary, required hand-counting the number of ballots, made drop boxes harder to use, and expanded the role of poll watchers. The appeal will proceed on a normal schedule, which means the state supreme court will fully consider the challenge against the rules over the next few months.
Cincinnati Enquirer v. Bloom
Found the blanket sealing of a juvenile’s delinquency records when the juvenile is found not delinquent — the juvenile equivalent of not guilty — unconstitutional because there was no determination that the harm to the juvenile outweighed the public’s right to access court records
Gonzalez v. Miller
Unanimously affirmed the denial of a district attorney’s effort to dismiss a state Open Records Act request relating to her office’s “failure . . . to effectively prosecute criminal cases, and an open disregard for the laws of the State of Georgia"
Paschall v. Thurston
Ruled that votes for a proposed marijuana-related amendment will not be counted because the name and ballot description for the measure are misleading
Center for Coalfield Justice v. Washington County Board of Elections
Will consider the constitutionality of a policy instituted by the election board for Washington County before the 2024 primary elections that caused all mail-in ballots received to be entered into the statewide system as simply “returned,” meaning voters whose ballots were disqualified received no notification that their vote wouldn’t count, leaving them unable to contest the decision or know to cast a provisional ballot.
Genser v. Butler County Board of Elections
Held citizens whose mail-in ballots were disqualified for a failure to return them in the required secrecy envelope have a right to cast a provisional ballot and have it count.
Commonwealth v. Govan
Will consider whether law enforcement use of location data obtained from a GPS monitoring device required to be worn by a pretrial releasee to investigate a new unrelated crime violates that individual's right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures under the Massachusetts or federal constitution.
State v. Miller
Held that the Iowa Constitution’s cruel and unusual punishment clause does not prohibit sentencing juvenile offenders to a minimum prison term before they are eligible for parole and rejected the defendant’s argument that the same clause bars such a sentence unless there is expert testimony concerning defendants’ “youthful characteristics"
State ex rel. Spung v. Evnen
Ordered election officials to implement immediately a 2024 law that reinstated voting rights to those convicted of a felony upon completion of their sentence, meaning affected people can now register to vote for November’s election. The secretary of state, based on an advisory opinion from the state attorney general calling the law unconstitutional, had directed election officials to stop registering people with a felony conviction who had not received a pardon.
Washington v. Nelson
Will consider whether random breath and urinalysis testing as a condition of community custody violates an offender's right to privacy under the state constitution, where alcohol and drugs played no role in the underlying crime.
