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How Not to Criticize a Judge
The Montana Supreme Court recently splintered over internal accusations of partisan bias.
Commonwealth v. Govan
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that imposition of GPS monitoring as a condition of pretrial release for a defendant whose conduct directly implicated state interests in protecting alleged crime and domestic violence victims and potential witnesses was constitutional under MA’s search and seizure clause. The court also held that an officer’s subsequent retrieval and review of an hour of defendant’s GPS location data in connection with investigating a new crime was not a search for state constitutional purposes because the defendant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the accessed information.
Rand v. New Hampshire
New Hampshire Supreme Court reversed trial court and held that statewide property tax scheme designed to pay for schools that allows a locality to retain any tax revenue in excess of what the district needs to fund an adequate education does not not violate a state constitutional clause empowering the legislature to levy "proportional" taxes on all New Hampshire residents. Also held that the state tax agency’s practice of setting negative local tax rates in unincorporated places with minimal or no education costs to offset nearly or completely the statewide rate does violate that clause.
The Trouble Between Trump and the States on Education Policy
School services, funding, and DEI programs are at stake.
Dylan Erikson
Dylan Erikson is a student at NYU Law School. He previously participated in the Brennan Center’s Public Policy Advocacy Clinic.
State ex rel. Hilgers v. Evnen
Nebraska Supreme Court held that provisions of a criminal justice reform law expanding parole eligibility, including retroactively to already-sentenced offenders, do not have the effect of substituting milder punishments for the ones already imposed, so do not infringe on the Board of Pardons’ exclusive commutation power under the state constitution.
State Department of Education & Early Development v. Alexander
Held that statutes permitting local school districts to operate correspondence study programs as alternative to traditional schooling and authorizing allotments of public funds to purchase nonsectarian educational services and materials did not facially violate state constitutional prohibition on using public funds for the direct benefit of religious or private educational institutions
Attorney General Duties Are a Frequent Target of Legislative Gamesmanship
Legislatures in multiple states have stripped power from attorneys general they disagree with politically.
Georgia Supreme Court Allows Under-21 Handgun Carry Ban
The court looked to the state’s own constitutional history rather than following recent U.S. Supreme Court gun decisions.
State v. Cohee
Held that the state was entitled to a writ of prohibition to effectively compel a lower court judge to impose a recidivist life sentence, finding that the state’s pursuit of such a sentence did not violate equal protection and the imposition of such sentence for fleeing from a law enforcement officer with reckless indifference would not violate proportionality clause of state constitution
