Search
Filter Search
State High Courts Split on Laws Letting Survivors of Sexual Abuse Sue After Expiration of Statutes of Limitations
State supreme courts have emphasized different constitutional provisions to decide whether bills reviving time-barred civil causes of action for child sexual abuse claims are constitutional.
Center for Coalfield Justice v. Washington County Board of Elections
Pennsylvania Supreme Court held a county election board policy that provided no notice to voters whose mail-in ballots were disqualified for errors and gave the misimpression they could not vote by provisional ballot violated voters' procedural due process rights
State Challenges to Immigration Enforcement Practices
Recent lawsuits in Wisconsin, New York, and California explore questions about the role of state law in federal immigration enforcement.
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.
State v. Amble
Iowa Supreme Court revisited its 2021 decision in State v. Wright that the state's search and seizure clause requires police to obtain a warrant before searching garbage placed curbside for collection, finding that subsequent enactment of a state statute providing such garbage "shall be deemed abandoned property" means a warrant is no longer constitutionally required. The majority reasoned that Wright relied on "positive law" -- a local anti-scavening ordinance prohibiting anyone but licensed trash collectors from picking up trash -- to define private property rights, and the state statute changed that positive law by preempting the local ordinance. A dissent opined that the majority's position allows legislative "end-runs" of constitutional rights and disregards an overarching reasonable-expectation-of-privacy analysis.
Alaska v. Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest
Alaska Supreme Court will consider whether the state's ban against advanced practice clinicians performing medication and aspiration abortions violates the state constitutional privacy right to make reproductive decisions or equal protection.
Everyone Benefits When Judges Come from a Variety of Backgrounds
Amid attacks on “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” the need for representative state supreme courts is as urgent as ever.
Michelle Mensore Condon
Michelle Mensore Condon is the director of externships, director of public service and pro bono, and distinguished visiting professor of law at Charleston School of Law in Charleston, South...
The West Virginia Constitution: Mountaineers Are Always Free
An early West Virginia constitution emancipated enslaved people in 1863, more than a year before the U.S. Constitution.
Josh Kaul v. Wisconsin State Legislature
Wisconsin Supreme Court held a law giving a legislative committee authority to approve or disprove civil settlements reached by the state justice department violates separation of powers as applied to civil enforcement actions and civil cases brought on behalf of executive agencies. Settling these types of actions is within the core power of the executive branch, as the legislature has failed to demonstrate that doing so implicates an institutional interest giving lawmakers a shared constitutional role.
