State Court Oral Arguments to Watch for in June

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

In June, state supreme courts will take up a wide range of issues, including an Ohio law prohibiting cities from regulating tobacco products, Delaware’s firearm ban for adults under age 21, an Oklahoma initiative that would eliminate property taxes for owner-occupied homes, and more.

Can Oklahoma Voters End Property Taxes for Owners’ Primary Residences? — June 2

Brooks v. Reynolds, Oklahoma Supreme Court

The Oklahoma Supreme Court will decide whether a proposed citizen initiative, which would eliminate by 2029 property taxes for owners who live in their homes, should advance to signature collection. The plaintiffs — including residents who are on school boards, a fire chief, and rural law enforcement — assert the proposed statute, if approved by voters in November, would have a “devastating effect” on Oklahoma by reducing revenue by over $1.5 billion annually and affecting numerous government services, particularly schools. They claim the law would violate the state constitution, including its tax uniformity clause by giving preferential treatment to homeowners and specific provisions governing property taxes.

Proponents of the initiative respond that the ballot measure is authorized by a separate state constitutional provision that permits the legislature to exempt homesteads from property taxes. They argue that because the provision does not expressly exclude legislation enacted by citizen initiative, any ambiguity should be construed in favor of the people’s right of initiative. The parties also dispute whether subsequent property-tax-related amendments nullified this provision.

Watch the arguments here.

Can Digital Tools Help Address California’s Court Reporter Shortage? — June 3

Family Violence Appellate Project v. Superior Court of Contra Costa County, California Supreme Court

The California Supreme Court will consider whether a state law prohibiting the electronic recording of most types of civil proceedings violates the California Constitution’s due process, equal protection, and separation-of-powers protections when there is no court-provided reporter available to transcribe the proceeding and a litigant cannot afford to hire a private court reporter. The context for the petition by legal assistance groups is the state’s widespread shortage of court reporters.

The petitioners, with support from numerous amicus groups, argue that prohibiting electronic recording in these circumstances “materially impairs” trial courts’ ability to satisfy their obligation — recognized in California high court precedent — “to ensure that indigent litigants have full access to the judicial system,” as well as impedes appellate courts’ ability to review lower court proceedings. California courts have tried to recruit new reporters, and the Los Angeles, Santa Clara, and Contra Costa trial courts have directed clerks to use electronic recording, notwithstanding the statute, when a judge so instructs after determining that a hearing implicates fundamental rights. But broader relief from the statute is necessary, the petitioners contend, so that access to free verbatim records is available to low-income litigants in all civil proceedings and not dependent on a judge’s discretion.

Watch the arguments here.

Can Ohio Cities Regulate Vapes? — June 9

City of Columbus v. State, Ohio Supreme Court

The Ohio Supreme Court will weigh whether a state statute that prohibits cities from regulating tobacco products violates Ohio’s 1912 “home rule” amendment, which empowers municipalities to govern locally so long as their rules do not conflict with “general” state laws. The legislature passed a bill within days of Columbus approving a ban on the sale of flavored tobacco, ultimately enacting the statute over two gubernatorial vetoes. As State Court Report has covered, the dispute is part of a trend of states trying to preclude local efforts to limit e-cigarette use, particularly among youth.

An intermediate court sided with over 20 Ohio cities challenging the statute. The panel held the legislation was not a “general law” that could block local ordinances under the home rule clause because it did not contain any affirmative regulation or rule. On appeal, the state argues the Ohio high court should abandon the established four-part test for a general law used by the intermediate court, in favor of the term’s meaning in 1912 as legislation that operates uniformly statewide — like this statute does.

Numerous public health groups, including the American Medical Association and American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, filed an amicus brief to emphasize the “critical role” cities in Ohio and other states have played in protecting against tobacco’s harms.

Watch the arguments here.

Can Wyoming Freeze Primary Voters’ Ability to Change Parties? — June 10

Malcom v. Gray, Wyoming Supreme Court

The Wyoming Supreme Court will hear a challenge to statutory changes passed in 2023 that restrict so-called “crossover voting” — preventing voters from declaring or changing their party affiliation within 96 days of the state’s primary, a deadline set to fall before candidates are allowed to apply to run in the primary election. A coalition of voters, former candidates, and a retired state legislator challenge the changes under Wyoming constitutional provisions requiring “open, free and equal” elections, protecting “untrammeled exercise of the right of suffrage,” and restricting conditions on “political rights.”

The parties ask the high court to resolve what test should apply to the legislation. The plaintiffs argue that, while the trial court correctly recognized voting rights as fundamental, it erred in adopting a lenient standard for election statues akin to rational basis review. The text and “spirit” of the state constitutional provisions require an exacting test, they contend, pointing to the Wyoming high court’s statements in a recent decision striking abortion bans that fundamental rights trigger strict scrutiny unless express constitutional language indicates otherwise. Wyoming’s secretary of state counters that rational basis is appropriate because participation in a political party’s nomination process is distinct from the fundamental right to vote in a general election. He also argues a separate state constitutional clause, providing lawmakers shall “secure the purity of elections,” authorizes the new party registration deadline to prevent “party raiding.”

Listen to the arguments here.

Can Delaware Restrict Young Adults from Having Guns? — June 10

Delaware Department of Safety and Homeland Security v. Birney, Delaware Supreme Court

The Delaware Supreme Court will consider whether a state law that went into effect last year that bans adults under 21 from purchasing or possessing firearms or ammunition, with limited exceptions, violates the right “to keep and bear arms” in the state constitution. A trial court sided with the plaintiffs — a young adult, the state National Rifle Association affiliate, and a shooting club — in finding a violation. Consistent with how the Delaware high court has previously evaluated restrictions on state constitutional gun rights, the trial court applied an intermediate level of scrutiny to the law.

On appeal, all sides take issue with the trial judge’s application of that test. The state and an amicus group, Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, argue the court erred in concluding the law burdened late adolescents’ right to self-defense more than was reasonably necessary to reduce the disproportionate rate of gun violence by this age group.

The plaintiffs respond that the test itself is wrong after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022’s New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen held that gun restrictions must have a historical analogue to satisfy the Second Amendment. The Delaware high court should adopt that originalist approach, they contend, so the state constitutional right to arms remains at least as protective as the federal right, after Bruen effectively raised the federal floor through a test less deferential to government regulation. That logic “erroneously conflates the rights afforded under each constitution with the means used by courts to protect them,” the state counters, noting that federal courts applying Bruen have split in their outcomes.

Watch the arguments here.

Was Washington’s Transfer of a Transgender Woman to a Male Prison Unconstitutionally Cruel? — June 23

In re Personal Restraint of Amber Kim, Washington Supreme Court

The Washington Supreme Court will consider whether the state’s transfer of a transgender woman from a women’s to a men’s prison violated the state constitution’s bar against “cruel punishment.” According to Amber Kim’s petition, corrections officials placed her in a women’s facility for her safety and wellbeing after she disclosed she was transgender, but following one nonviolent infraction forcibly transferred her back to a men’s prison. For nearly two years, she has stayed there in solitary confinement, fearful of sexual assault and harassment if she joins the general men’s population.

Kim argues the intermediate court, in denying her petition, misapplied the state supreme court’s test for cruel conditions of confinement: Whether they “create an objectively significant risk of serious harm or otherwise deprive the petitioner of the basic necessities of human dignity” and are “not reasonably necessary to accomplish a legitimate penological goal.” Properly balanced, Kim maintains, the harms to her from either indefinite solitary confinement or suppression of her gender identity and avoidance of essential functions like showering for her safety in the general prison population “vastly outweigh” the state’s interests. Former corrections officials filed an amicus brief in Kim’s support, citing data that transgender women in men’s prisons are “at least ten times more likely to be sexually assaulted than the average adult prisoner.”

The state responds that Kim’s facility safely houses many other transgender women, she continues to receive gender-affirming care there, and corrections staff — led by the department’s Gender Responsive Administrator, a transgender woman — regularly review Kim’s custody placement.

Watch the arguments here.

Sarah Kessler is an advisor and contributing editor to State Court Report.

Suggested Citation: Sarah Kessler, State Court Oral Arguments to Watch for in June, Sᴛᴀᴛᴇ Cᴏᴜʀᴛ Rᴇᴘᴏʀᴛ (June 1, 2026), https://statecourtreport.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/state-court-oral-arguments-watch-june-2