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 August 2025.
Featured Cases
McDougle v. Scott
Virginia Supreme Court, in a split decision, nullified a constitutional amendment approved by voters that would have redrawn the state's congressional districts, finding the legislative process used for the amendment violated the state constitution
Hoke County Board of Education v. State of North Carolina
The North Carolina Supreme Court overturned its own precedent and put an end to more than 30 years of litigation involving the funding of public education in the state
Commonwealth v. Lee
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that mandating a life sentence, without the possibility of parole, for “felony murder” — a legal doctrine that allows someone to be prosecuted for murder for any death that occurs during the commission of a separate felony, even if the defendant never meant to kill anyone — violates the Pennsylvania Constitution’s ban on “cruel” punishments
In re Tom Malinowski
Appellants claimed that state's ban on fusion voting violates rights to vote, to free speech and political association, to equal protection, and to assemble
Ex Parte David Leonard Wood
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals remanded subsequent habeas petition for development of actual innocence claim. Concurrence would hold that state constitution's distinctive protections against erroneous deprivations of life support an independent standard for actual innocence habeas claims involving capital sentences.
Hicks v. State
Wyoming Supreme Court held that mandatory life without parole sentences for young adults who are over 18 do not violate the state constitution’s criminal punishment or equal protection clauses.
State v. Evans
Washington Supreme Court held that a county's administrative booking process, which involves patting down, handcuffing, and detaining pretrial releasees inside a jail to take their fingerprints and identifying information, violates the state constitution’s protection against intrusions into "private affairs" without authority of law.
Ferguson v. Department of Transportation
Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that counting prior participation in a diversionary program to resolve a driving-under-the-influence charge as a prior offense prompting a driver's license suspension for a subsequent conviction does not violate substantive due process under the state constitution.
Robust Missouri Dispensary 3 v. St. Louis County
Missouri Supreme Court held that the definition of "local government" in a 2022 amendment legalizing recreational marijuana use plainly prevents both counties and cities from imposing sales tax on the same marijuana products.
Bailey v. McKintosh County, Webster v. McIntosh County, McIntosh County v. Webster
Georgia Supreme Court reversed a lower court order stopping a special election on a referendum to repeal a county zoning ordinance that could increase home sizes in a historic community of slave descendants, holding the state constitutional clause giving voters that referendum authority extends to zoning ordinances.
Phillips v. State (Formerly Blackmon v. State)
Plaintiffs, including patients who allege they did not receive medically necessary abortion care due to doctors' confusion regarding the scope of the medical necessity exception in the state's abortion ban, challenge that exception as violating state constitutional rights to life and equal protection and as unconstitutionally vague.
Columbus City School District v. State
Trial court found the state’s recently expanded EdChoice school voucher program violates the state constitution’s requirement of “a thorough and efficient system of common schools.”
Englewood Hospital & Medical Center v. State
New Jersey Supreme Court rejected claims by a group of hospitals that the state’s “charity care program” — which prevents them from turning away people unable to pay and from billing qualified patients — constitutes an illegal "per se" or regulatory taking under the state and federal constitutions.
