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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 v. Spencer
Illinois Supreme Court held that an aggregate 100-year prison sentence for a defendant who was 20 when the crimes occurred is not a de facto life sentence because a state statute makes first-degree murder defendants under 21 eligible for parole after 20 years and mandates that the reviewing board consider mitigating circumstances related to the defendant’s youth. The court further held that the the fact the sentence is not de facto life does not foreclose the defendant from bringing an as-applied challenge to his sentence under the state constitution’s “proportionate penalties” clause in a post-conviction petition.
Montana Environmental Information Center v. Office of the Governor
Montana Supreme Court held that a party who succeeds on a state constitutional “right to know” claim in a public records dispute is entitled to a presumption that they should be awarded attorneys’ fees. Two dissents opined that the holding was motivated by partisan bias.
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.
Hon. Nathan Hecht
Hon. Nathan Hecht is the former chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court, a partner at the law firm Jackson Walker, and a distinguished judicial fellow at NYU School of Law.
Christine Monta
Christine Monta is Supreme Court & Appellate Counsel at the MacArthur Justice Center.
Eugene Volokh
Eugene Volokh is the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus at UCLA School of Law and Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.
2025’s Most Significant State Constitutional Cases
Leading legal thinkers weighed in on the state constitutional rulings our readers should know about from this past year.
