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Sikora v. Iowa
Iowa Supreme Court held that a former incarcerated person’s state constitutional and tort damages claims against the state and correction officers for releasing him from prison five months late were barred by the legislature’s choice not to waive sovereign immunity for false imprisonment claims. Three dissenting justices would have held that the right to sue an official for false imprisonment was part of the common law at the state constitution’s adoption and was secured by its liberty guarantees, precluding legislators from eliminating that right in the state tort claims act.
Michael Weinrib
Michael Weinrib is a law student at the University of Wisconsin Law School and an intern at the Brennan Center.
Rachel Seplow
Rachel Seplow is a law student at NYU School of Law and an intern at the Brennan Center.
Mohamed Nur
Mohamed Nur is a law student at Stanford Law School and an intern at the Brennan Center.
Ankita Joshi
Ankita Joshi is a law student at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and an intern at the Brennan Center.
Disability Rights Under State Constitutions
Thirty-five years after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, state constitutional anti-discrimination clauses, voting rights, and educational guarantees can expand protections for people with disabilities.
Marcelius Braxton
Marcelius Braxton is the director of the Center for Social Change and Belonging and an affiliate associate teaching professor of Philosophy and African Studies at Penn State University.
How State Courts Pushed Back on an Infamous U.S. Supreme Court Case
Dred Scott, widely considered a stain on the U.S. Supreme Court’s history, denied citizenship to Black Americans in 1857. Many state supreme courts refused to follow it.
State v. City of San Antonio
Court of Appeals blocked a city from distributing payments under a $100,000 fund created to cover reproductive healthcare costs, which may include out-of-state travel for abortion care, while a full appeal is pending. Preliminarily held the fund violates the state constitution's gift clause because sending residents to undergo procedures out of state that Texas prohibits within the state does not count as a public purpose. Although the city had not yet disbursed any money and argued it still had the option to choose not to pay for out-of-state abortion travel, the panel found it sufficiently likely such payment would occur for the dispute to be ripe.
