State Court Oral Arguments to Watch for in April

Each month, State Court Report previews upcoming oral arguments in prominent or interesting state court cases.

In April, state supreme courts will take up a wide range of issues, including how state appellate judges are elected in Arizona, whether Wyoming’s abortion ban violates the state’s so-called healthcare freedom amendment, and whether voters can repeal controversial zoning changes in a historic community of descendants of enslaved people.

New York City’s Caps on Greenhouse Gas Emissions — April 8

Glen Oaks Village Owners v. City of New York, New York Court of Appeals

New York’s highest court will consider whether a New York City law establishing greenhouse gas emission caps for large city buildings is preempted by the state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, a law setting statewide emissions targets. An intermediate appellate court revived the plaintiff building owners and landlords’ preemption claim, finding they had sufficiently alleged that the climate law encompasses the entire field of emissions regulation in the state and could thus preclude the city making its own laws governing greenhouse gas emissions.

On appeal, New York City is arguing that, in passing the climate law, the state legislature intended to “preserve opportunities for complementary local action to help combat climate change.” Multiple amicus briefs, including those filed by environmental groups and a lawmaker who was a lead sponsor of the law, as well as the state of New York, support the city’s argument that the local law is a critical part of achieving statewide emissions reduction mandates.

Watch the arguments here.

Should Retention Elections for Appellate Judges Be Statewide? — April 8

Knight v. Fontes, Arizona Supreme Court

The Arizona Supreme Court will consider whether the process by which judges on the state’s intermediate appellate court are elected to additional terms every six years violates provisions of the state constitution requiring “free and equal” elections and equal protection of laws. Judges are initially appointed by the governor but thereafter stand for retention elections, in which voters cast a yes-no ballot about whether to give a justice another term on the court. Under the law governing retention elections, a person may vote only for the appellate judges who reside in the same designated area of the state as the voter.

A group of electors represented by the Goldwater Institute and a former Arizona high court justice, who also previously ran as a Republican candidate for attorney general, challenged the law. They allege that because appellate decisions may have statewide impact — and that judges’ dockets are not determined by their residency — voters statewide must have an equal say over whether to retain each judge.

The trial court disagreed, finding that the law treats all similarly situated voters in each county the same and the state constitution specifically provides that not all appellate judges will be voted on by all Arizona voters. The state supreme court will hear the plaintiffs’ appeal of that decision directly. Voters and civil rights groups in other states have alleged that statewide election of appellate judges, as the plaintiffs here seek, unlawfully dilutes the voting power of minorities and makes it harder for them to express their judicial preferences.

Watch the arguments here.

Wyoming to Consider if Abortion Ban Should Remain Blocked — April 16

Johnson v. Wyoming, Wyoming Supreme Court

The Wyoming Supreme Court will hear arguments over whether the state’s near-total abortion ban and its ban on medication abortions should remain permanently blocked for violating the state’s 2012 so-called healthcare freedom amendment, which protects state citizens’ right to make their own healthcare decisions. Such amendments were enacted in several states in response to the passage of the Affordable Care Act as a way to bar penalties related to the purchase of healthcare or health insurance. (Those penalties have since been rescinded.)

A lower court found that the freedom to make healthcare decisions under the amendment was a fundamental right and that decisions involving surgical and medication abortion procedures constituted healthcare for purposes of the amendment. The court reached that conclusion despite a legislative statement in the abortion ban that “abortion as defined in this act is not health care.” It also rejected the argument that the choice to have an abortion is not the woman’s own healthcare decision because a fetus is affected. Finally, the judge said the ban was not a reasonable and necessary healthcare restriction that could qualify as an exception to the amendment. The state of Wyoming is appealing that ruling. 

State Court Report previously wrote about the case and discussed plaintiffs’ use of healthcare freedom amendments to challenge abortion restrictions and laws targeting transgender people across multiple states. Watch the argument here.

Voters’ Power to Repeal Zoning in Historic Minority Community — April 16

Bailey v. McKintosh County, Webster v. McIntosh County, McIntosh County v. Webster, Georgia Supreme Court

The Georgia Supreme Court will weigh whether to uphold a lower court order stopping a special election — after over 800 residents had already cast ballots in early voting — on a local referendum to repeal controversial zoning changes in a coastal area called Hogg Hummock. The area is home to the last Gullah Geechee community, a people descended from West and Central African enslaved people, on a Georgia barrier island. Residents say the zoning ordinance, which would double allowable home sizes, will attract developers and “price them out of their generational homes.” A separate ongoing lawsuit by the Southern Poverty Law Center alleges the changes are racially discriminatory.

In stopping the special election, the trial court ruled that the state constitutional provision that allows residents to petition to repeal county ordinances by referendum does not extend to zoning because the constitution grants counties zoning authority in a separate section. In three appeals being heard together, voters behind the referendum petition and the probate judge who initially approved it argue this constitutional process applies to any exercise of county legislative power. The county also challenges a separate trial court order temporarily pausing the zoning changes until the special election dispute is resolved.

Watch the arguments here.

Parental Rights of Same-Sex Couples Banned from Marrying — April 22

In re L.E.S., Ohio Supreme Court

The Ohio Supreme Court will take up a petition for parental rights filed by a woman who was part of a same-sex couple whose relationship occurred — and children were born — when the state’s same-sex marriage ban was in effect, before the U.S. Supreme in Obergefell v. Hodges said such bans violate the U.S. Constitution. Because the petitioner was neither the biological parent nor married to the birth mother of the couple’s children, the lower court ruled she did not meet the legal definition of “parent.” The appellate court disagreed, finding the petitioner could qualify as a “parent” under Ohio statutes if she could prove that she “would have been married” at the time of conception but for the unconstitutional same-sex marriage ban.

On appeal to the Ohio high court, the birth mother argues that a “would have been married” test violates separation-of-powers principles and the state constitution’s bar on retroactive changes to laws by effectively rewriting state statutes like those that do not recognize common-law marriage. She also says the test violates her due process right to parental autonomy under the federal Constitution by requiring her to share parental control with a non-parent. In response, the petitioner contends judges have the power to extend “underinclusive” laws to cover people who were unlawfully excluded.

Watch the arguments here.

Sarah Kessler is an advisor to State Court Report.

Erin Geiger Smith is a writer and editor at the Brennan Center for Justice.

Suggested Citation: Sarah Kessler & Erin Geiger Smith, State Court Oral Arguments to Watch for in April, Sᴛᴀᴛᴇ Cᴏᴜʀᴛ Rᴇᴘᴏʀᴛ (Apr. 2, 2025), https://statecourtreport.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/state-court-oral-arguments-watch-april