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Missouri State Conference of the NAACP v. State
Trial court upheld voter identification requirements, finding them consistent with a 2016 state constitutional amendment that a voter "may be required by general law to identify himself or herself" and not to violate the state constitutional right to vote or equal protection. The trial court determined that rational basis review is the appropriate level of scrunity, but said the law would satisfy any level.
State v. Pulizzi
Ruled that the criminal defendant did not have an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in his curbside garbage based on the city's waste collection ordinance requiring special permission from the city for an exemption from waste collection service
Ohio’s Justice DeWine Attempts to Address Criticisms of Originalism
The Ohio Supreme Court justice outlines a framework that promotes state interpretations that differ from federal jurisprudence.
Ainslee Johnson-Brown
Ainslee Johnson-Brown is a constitutional law scholar and advocate specializing in judicial interpretation and the evolving role of state courts in protecting democracy.
Montenegro v. Fontes
WIll consider whether portion of campaign-disclosure law that says rules and enforcement activity by a commission charged with implementing the law are not subject to limit by any "legislative governmental body" -- which the trial court found to violate separation of powers principles -- is severable from the rest of the law. Will also consider whether legislators have standing to claim that the law's grant of general implementing power to the commission interferes with legislative power.
North Carolina Could Be on the Verge of a Constitutional Crisis
If the courts hand a victory to the state’s losing supreme court candidate, citizens across the political spectrum could perceive the court as unfair — and the justices risk losing their legitimacy.
Blackmon v. State
Plaintiffs who allege they were denied, or received delayed, 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 their state constitutional rights to life and equal protection and as unconstitutionally vague. A Tennessee trial court held the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits as to each challenge, at least with respect to certain maternal medical conditions the parties agreed fall within the exception, and granted temporary relief declaring the exception to include those conditions.
In re Courtney Rae Hudson v. Arkansas Administrative Office of the Courts
Relying on the state high court's general superintending control over all state courts, vacated a circuit court preliminary injunction that had prevented the administrative office of the courts and the office of professional conduct from complying with a FOIA request for certain communications with the state supreme court chief justice. The state high court also referred the chief justice and her attorney, who had sought the injunction, to state ethics bodies.
Mitchell v. University of North Carolina Board of Governors
Will consider whether public university's termination of a tenured professor based, in part, on a letter he wrote to a department chair using offensive language violates the First Amendment, and whether lower courts' deference to the interpretation put forth by the university -- a state agency -- of its faculty employment regulations violates separation of powers.
Virginia Courts Are Revisiting How to Interpret the State Constitution
A recent case announcing greater state protection of religious liberties than under federal law marked a turning point in Virginia jurisprudence.
