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Symposium: The Power of State Constitutional Rights
How are state constitutions providing means to protect rights in the face of federal retrenchment?
Phillips v. State (Formerly Blackmon v. State)
Plaintiffs, including patients who allege they did not receive medically necessary abortion care due to doctors' confusion regarding the scope of the medical necessity exception in the state's abortion ban, challenge that exception as violating state constitutional rights to life and equal protection and as unconstitutionally vague.
State v. Evans
Washington Supreme Court held that a county's administrative booking process, which involves patting down, handcuffing, and detaining pretrial releasees inside a jail to take their fingerprints and identifying information, violates the state constitution’s protection against intrusions into "private affairs" without authority of law.
Bailey v. McKintosh County, Webster v. McIntosh County, McIntosh County v. Webster
Georgia Supreme Court reversed a lower court order stopping a special election on a referendum to repeal a county zoning ordinance that could increase home sizes in a historic community of slave descendants, holding the state constitutional clause giving voters that referendum authority extends to zoning ordinances.
Ferguson v. Department of Transportation
Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that counting prior participation in a diversionary program to resolve a driving-under-the-influence charge as a prior offense prompting a driver's license suspension for a subsequent conviction does not violate substantive due process under the state constitution.
PFLAG v. Office of the Attorney General
Texas Supreme Court will consider whether to enforce information requests issued to PFLAG as part of the state's investigation of whether doctors are evading the state's ban on gender-affirming care for minors.
Robust Missouri Dispensary 3 v. St. Louis County
Missouri Supreme Court held that the definition of "local government" in a 2022 amendment legalizing recreational marijuana use plainly prevents both counties and cities from imposing sales tax on the same marijuana products.
Columbus City School District v. State
Trial court found the state’s recently expanded EdChoice school voucher program violates the state constitution’s requirement of “a thorough and efficient system of common schools.”
The Landmark Case That Extended Speech Rights on Private Property
In 1980, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that Princeton University could not exclude members of the public from distributing political materials on campus.
