State Case Database
Search State Court Report's database of significant state supreme court decisions and pending cases. Download decisions and briefs for cases that develop state constitutional law. This is a selected database and does not include every state supreme court case. See methodology and "How to Use the State Case Database" for more information.
This database is updated monthly, although individual cases may be updated more frequently. Last updated comprehensively with cases decided through May 2025.
Featured Cases
Access Independent Health Services v. Wrigley
North Dakota Supreme Court upheld state's abortion ban despite three of five justices concluding a health-risk exception was unconstitutionally vague, because the state constitution requires four justices to declare legislation unconstitutional
Clarke v. Town of Newburgh
New York Court of Appeals held local government could not assert state or federal equal protection challenge to the vote dilution provision of the state's Voting Rights Act
League of Women Voters of Utah v. Utah State Legislature (LWV 1)
Utah Supreme Court sent partisan gerrymandering case back to lower court to consider whether the legislature violated voters' fundamental right to "reform or alter" their government when it overturned redistricting reforms passed by initiative. Lower court found legislators violated that right and struck the current congressional map, adopting an alternative proposed by the plaintiffs
Evers v. Marklein
Wisconsin Supreme Court held that statutes permitting a legislative committee to pause, object to, or suspend administrative rules for varying periods of time both before and after promulgation — used by the committee in this case effectively to block for three years a rule banning “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ+ patients — facially violate the state constitution’s bicameralism and presentment requirements.
Foresman v. Foresman
Hawaii Supreme Court upheld law that reopened civil claims based on sexual acts with a minor "that constituted or would have constituted a criminal offense,” finding it established a statute of limitations, not an independent cause of action, and only imposed liability for acts that were crimes when the conduct occurred
Sync Title Agency, LLC v. Arizona Corporation Commission
Arizona Court of Appeals held that juryless administrative hearings for civil securities charges do not violate the state constitution's jury trial right. The court relied on the same holding reached by a separate panel of the appeals court in EFG America v. Arizona Corporation Commission. The company plaintiff in EFG has petitioned the Arizona Supreme Court for review of this issue.
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 Massachusetts'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.
Contoocook Valley School District v. New Hampshire
New Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed the state's existing education funding law is constitutionally inadequate and $7,356.01 per pupil as a minimum constitutional guidepost for the legislature, but said the lower court insufficiently accounted for separation of powers concerns when it ordered the state to pay that increased amount immediately.
Atlantic Games, Inc. v. Georgia Lottery Corporation
Concurral to denial of certiorari by Justice Peteerson questioned whether the court should reconsider existing caselaw on the nondelegation doctrine in a different case because, in their view, it does not comport with original public meaning
Sobel v. Cameron
Three Jewish women claim abortion ban, which defines human life as beginning at fertilization, violates the state constitution’s prohibition on unintelligible laws because its application to in vitro fertilization is unclear, and religious liberties by inhibiting the Jewish duty to procreate and prioritizing Christian values. Trial court granted summary judgment for the state defendants for lack of standing, but Court of Appeals reversed as to one of the plaintiffs who has frozen embryos and has shown an interest in using them but confusion about her options.
Elliott v. City of College Station
Texas Supreme Court declined, based on constitutional avoidance and separation of powers principles, to resolve claim by residents of an extraterritorial jurisdiction that a clause preserving a “republican form of government” protects them from being subject to city regulations when they cannot vote in city elections. While the appeal was pending, the legislature changed the law to provide a process for opting out of the jurisdiction, of which the plaintiffs did not avail themselves.
Amdor v. Grisham
Denied portion of original petition alleging that governor's executive orders declaring or addressing gun violence and drug abuse as public health emergencies pursuant to the state's Public Health Emergency Response Act violate either the scope of that law or separation of powers. But granted petition to extent it challenged part of the orders suspending a juvenile detention program for exceeding the limits of the state's police power.
People v. Eads
Michigan Court of Appeals held that a 50-year minimum sentence for a defendant convicted of second-degree murder as a juvenile is "cruel or unusual" punishment, finding that sentence constitutionally equivalent to the life-with-the-possibility-of-parole sentence the Michigan Supreme Court found "cruel or unusual" in People v. Stovall. The court also held that the defendant's sentence was disproportionate given the sentencing court's failure to consider his youth and its attendant characteristics as mitigating factors.
