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 January 2025.
Featured Cases
People v. Taylor; People v. Czarnecki
Michigan Supreme Court held that mandatory life-without-parole sentences violate the state constitution’s protection against “cruel or unusual” punishment for anyone under age 21 at the time of the offense. The decision extends the court’s 2022 ruling in People v. Parks that such sentences are unconstitutional for those 18 or under.
Griffin v. State Board of Elections
A candidate for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court, who lost by over 700 votes, claims that the state board of elections followed an incorrect process for registering voters and seeks in invalidate more than 60,000 votes.
N'Da v. Hybl
Nebraska Supreme Court held that statutory requirement that applicant seeking certificate to provide nonemergency medical transport must show the proposed service is required by "public convenience and necessity" does not facially violate state constitutional due process or bans on "special laws" or laws granting "special privileges and immunities." Also held that that the Nebraska Constitution's due process and equal protection clauses are coextensive with their federal equivalents, so federal rational basis review applies to substantive due process challenges to economic regulations, not the heightened standard the court had applied in a line of cases from the early 20th century.
Roman Catholic Archbishop of Washington v. John Doe, Board of Education of Harford County v. Doe, The Key School, Inc., et al. v. Valerie Bunker
Held that a law repealing a prior time bar for child sex abuse claims — which had prevented victims from suing once they turned 38 — did not violate a defendant's vested right to be free from liability because the prior time bar was an ordinary statute of limitations, not a statute of repose. The court concluded that the expiration of a statute of limitations does not create a vested right, while the running of a statute of repose does. Even absent a vested right, however, the court ruled that a law retroactively resurrecting a remedy previously precluded by a statute of limitations must bear "a real and substantial relation to the problem it addressed," but found that standard met in the context of child sex abuse claims.
Mitchell v. University of North Carolina Board of Governors
Will consider whether public university's termination of a tenured professor based, in part, on a letter he wrote to a department chair using offensive language violates the First Amendment, and whether lower courts' deference to the interpretation put forth by the university -- a state agency -- of its faculty employment regulations violates separation of powers.
Missouri State Conference of the NAACP v. State
Trial court upheld voter identification requirements, finding them consistent with a 2016 state constitutional amendment that a voter "may be required by general law to identify himself or herself" and not to violate the state constitutional right to vote or equal protection. The trial court determined that rational basis review is the appropriate level of scrunity, but said the law would satisfy any level.
State v. Pulizzi
Ruled that the criminal defendant did not have an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in his curbside garbage based on the city's waste collection ordinance requiring special permission from the city for an exemption from waste collection service
Blackmon v. State
Plaintiffs who allege they were denied, or received delayed, 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 their state constitutional rights to life and equal protection and as unconstitutionally vague. A Tennessee trial court held the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits as to each challenge, at least with respect to certain maternal medical conditions the parties agreed fall within the exception, and granted temporary relief declaring the exception to include those conditions.
McKinney v. Goins
Ruled that the retroactive amendment of the statute of limitations for tort claims by victims of child sexual abuse effected by SAFE Child Act did not disturb or destroy a “vested right” and thus did not violate state constitution's Law of the Land Clause, and the General Assembly may enact retroactive legislation that does not fall into the two explicitly prohibited categories of retroactive laws enumerated in state constitution's Ex Post Facto Clause
Murray v. Dalton (In re Doe)
Held that Idaho’s statutes governing powers and duties of guardianship and governing resignation, removal, modification, or termination proceedings for guardians of minors, were rationally related to legitimate government interest in the minor’s safety and best interests and, thus, were not unconstitutionally broad or vague in violation of due process
In re S.M.
Held that an indigent parent or custodial respondent in an abuse and neglect case has a right to appointed counsel at all stages of the proceedings, but they may elect to continue self-represented upon a knowing and intelligent waiver of the right to counsel
Nevada Policy Research Institute v. Miller
Held that respondents' dual service as legislators and employees of state or local government did not violate the doctrine of separation of powers
Amedure v. State
Ruled that Election Law § 9-209 (2) (g), which provides that if the members of a bipartisan local board charged with reviewing ballots are split as to a ballot's validity, the ballot shall be cast and canvassed, did not violate the equal representation mandate set forth in article II, section 8 of the New York Constitution and principles of judicial review and separation of powers
