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Recent State Judicial Opinions Critique Lockstepping
Justices in Connecticut, Texas, and Pennsylvania have called on their courts to embrace independent state constitutional interpretations.
Eidson v. South Carolina Department of Education
Held that state program providing taxpayer-funded education accounts to low-income families cannot be allocated by parents to private school tuition because doing so violates a state constitutional ban on use of public funds for the “direct benefit” of private educational institutions.
Acorn International v. State
Held that the Secretary of State's response to ACORN International's public records request asking for documentation of the actual costs for a yearly subscription to state voter database did not violate organization's constitutional right to know
Oberholzer v. Galapo
Held that neighbors' anti-racist signs did not intolerably intrude on homeowners' substantial privacy interests, and thus constitutional free-speech protections did not permit trial court to enjoin continued display of the signs
Commonwealth v. Thompson
Dissent would have held that inventory searches are unconstitutional under art. 1 sec. 8 of the Pennsylvania constitution, and therefore reversed the defendant's judgment on appeal
Francisco v. Affiliated Urologists
Held that statutes requiring the patient to obtain expert testimony to establish the requisite standard of care in the patient's negligence action did not violate the anti-abrogation clause, despite the patient's allegations that no expert would testify
State v. Chadwick
Held that in multiple acts case when counts charged are identical, the jury must be specifically instructed that it must be unanimous regarding both the conduct supporting conviction on each count and the defendant's guilt
Jenkins v. Beaver County
Held that the mail-in ballot postmark statute did not result in an unequal treatment of voters or interfere with the constitutional right to vote
State v. Baugh
Held that defendant’s counsel rendered constitutionally ineffective assistance by failing to request jury instructions on its duty to be unanimous as to each element of each convicted count
Satcher v. Columbia County
Held that the injunction entered against county, preventing it from maintaining a defective stormwater drainage system, exceeded the scope of the sovereign immunity waiver
