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Gonzales v. Markland
Held that the use of a jury district for manslaughter trial comprised of two counties did not violate the “county or district” terminology of art. 6, § 7 of the South Dakota Constitution, granting the right to a trial by a “jury of the county or district in which the offense is alleged to have been committed”
Rivas v. Brownell
Held that a statute-of-limitations tolling provision in a supervisory order issued in response to the COVID-19 pandemic did not violate the separation of powers nor the affected drivers' rights to procedural due process
Commonwealth v. Govan
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that imposition of GPS monitoring as a condition of pretrial release for a defendant whose conduct directly implicated state interests in protecting alleged crime and domestic violence victims and potential witnesses was constitutional under MA’s search and seizure clause. The court also held that an officer’s subsequent retrieval and review of an hour of defendant’s GPS location data in connection with investigating a new crime was not a search for state constitutional purposes because the defendant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the accessed information.
N'Da v. Hybl
Nebraska Supreme Court held that statutory requirement that applicant seeking certificate to provide nonemergency medical transport must show the proposed service is required by "public convenience and necessity" does not facially violate state constitutional due process or bans on "special laws" or laws granting "special privileges and immunities." Also held that that the Nebraska Constitution's due process and equal protection clauses are coextensive with their federal equivalents, so federal rational basis review applies to substantive due process challenges to economic regulations, not the heightened standard the court had applied in a line of cases from the early 20th century.
Planned Parenthood South Atlantic v. South Carolina (Planned Parenthood 2)
South Carolina Supreme Court held that a "fetal heartbeat" — as defined in a state law banning most abortions at the point such a heartbeat is detected — occurs when electrical impulses are first detectable as a "sound" with diagnostic medical technology and a medical professional observes those electrical impulses as a "steady and repetitive rhythmic contraction of the fetal heart." Although declining to define that point in terms of a number of weeks, the court said it "occurs in most instances at approximately six weeks of pregnancy." The court also held that the law is not unconstitutionally vague.
Wisconsin Supreme Court Rules 176-Year-Old Law Does Not Ban Abortion
State Republicans wanted to use the law to criminalize abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court held the federal Constitution does not protect the procedure.
What this Year’s SCOTUS Term Means for State Courts
Several rulings will impact the power of state courts and the cases that come before them.
McCarty v. Missouri Secretary of State
Missouri Supreme Court held that plaintiff business groups and voters had failed to show that the ballot summary and fiscal note summary for an approved measure increasing the state's minimum wage and providing paid sick leave were inadequate or unfair. The court also held that its constitutionally and statutorily derived original jurisdiction over post-election contests is limited to matters related to the election process and does not extend to claims about the validity of a ballot measure.
Birthmark Doula Collective v. State of Louisiana
Reproductive healthcare providers and advocates challenge a state law that reclassifies mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled dangerous substances, arguing that the law unconstitutionally regulates and delays access to medications that people need for non-abortion reasons, often for emergencies such as postpartum hemorrhage, simply because those medications may also be used for an abortion. They allege the law violates the state constitution's equal protection clause and single-subject and germane-amendment rules.
Rafael Cox Alomar
Rafael Cox Alomar is a professor of law at the David A. Clarke School of Law of the University of the District of Columbia in Washington D.C. and author of...
