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 2024.
Featured Cases
Genser v. Butler County Board of Elections
Held citizens whose mail-in ballots were disqualified for a failure to return them in the required secrecy envelope have a right to cast a provisional ballot and have it count.
Cincinnati Enquirer v. Bloom
Found the blanket sealing of a juvenile’s delinquency records when the juvenile is found not delinquent — the juvenile equivalent of not guilty — unconstitutional because there was no determination that the harm to the juvenile outweighed the public’s right to access court records
Gonzalez v. Miller
Unanimously affirmed the denial of a district attorney’s effort to dismiss a state Open Records Act request relating to her office’s “failure . . . to effectively prosecute criminal cases, and an open disregard for the laws of the State of Georgia"
Scott v. Pennsylvania Board of Parole
Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled it lacked jurisdiction to hear petition for review of parole board's denial of parole applications of people serving mandatory sentences of life without parole for felony murder. Petitioners sought a declaration that application of statute denying parole to individuals serving life sentences to those convicted of felony murder was unconstitutional under state ban on cruel punishments.
Individual Members of the Medical Licensing Board of Indiana v. Anonymous Plaintiff 1
Upheld a temporary injunction against Indiana's 2022 abortion ban based on religious freedom claims, but held the injunction was overly broad because it enjoined enforcement of the abortion law in ways that did not violate the state's religious freedom act. Remanded for entry of a narrower injunction
Stefanik v. Hochul
Held that the Early Mail Voter Act, permitting all qualified voters to vote early by mail, was consistent with and valid under the state constitution’s absentee voting provision.
Howell v. Cooper
The North Carolina Supreme Court will hear two cases together, both brought by bar owners who sued the state claiming that shutdown orders related to the Covid-19 pandemic violated their state constitutional right to earn a living, their due process rights under the “law of the land” clause, and their equal protection rights
Foresman v. Foresman
The Hawaii Supreme Court will consider a law that reopened civil claims “based upon sexual acts” with a minor “that constituted or would have constituted a criminal offense” under certain statutes. At issue is whether the law can impose liability for acts that were not crimes when they were committed without violating federal and state constitutional bars against retroactive application of punishment.
Montanans for Election Reform Action Fund v. Knudsen
Held that petitioner’s proposed ballot issue did not violate the separate-vote requirement provision
In re Dallas County
Upheld, in a unanimous opinion, a 2023 law creating a new court of appeals that has exclusive statewide jurisdiction over intermediate appeals in most matters brought against the state and challenges to a state law’s constitutionality when the attorney general is a party.
Webster v. Commission for Lawyer Discipline
The Texas Supreme Court will hear an appeal by the state attorney general’s senior-most deputy of a disciplinary complaint accusing him of making misrepresentations in Texas’s failed U.S. Supreme Court challenge to alleged 2020 election "irregularities" in other states.
McKinney v. Goins
The North Carolina Supreme Court will address whether a law that revived for a two-year period child sex abuse claims that would otherwise be time-barred violated defendants’ due process rights under the state’s “law of the land” clause.
