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1 week ago | 
statecourtreport.org | Alicia Bannon |Manny Marotta |Erin Smith |Marcus Gadson
Two conservative justices on the Montana Supreme Court recently suggested that partisan bias drives some of the court’s decisions.
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1 week ago | 
statecourtreport.org | Andrew Willinger |John Dinan |Constance Van Kley |Alicia Bannon
The court looked to the state’s own constitutional history rather than following recent U.S. Supreme Court gun decisions. The Georgia Supreme Court last month upheld a state law that prohibits those under the age of 21 from carrying a handgun in public.
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3 weeks ago | 
statecourtreport.org | Alicia Bannon |Mary Ziegler |Julia R. Livingston |Diana Kasdan
This month marks the third anniversary of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization,in which the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and held that there was no federal constitutional right to abortion. The Court said it was returning decisions about abortion regulation “to the people and their elected representatives.” Strikingly, the decision didn’t mention state courts.
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3 weeks ago | 
statecourtreport.org | John Dinan |Andrew Willinger |Constance Van Kley |Alicia Bannon
This essay is part of a 50-state series about the nation’s constitutions. We’ve asked an expert from each state to dive into their constitution, narrate its history, identify its quirks, and summarize its most essential components for our readers. Virginia adopted one of the earliest state constitutions, in June 1776, part of an initial wave of state constitution-making that preceded even the Declaration of Independence.
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4 weeks ago | 
statecourtreport.org | Aaron Saiger |Alicia Bannon |Erin Smith
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court divided 4–4 over whether denying a charter school application from a religious school would violate the Constitution’s prohibition on establishing or favoring a religion. The decision upheld the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s holding that chartering a school that would “evangelize” a particular faith violated state legislation and the Oklahoma and federal constitutions.
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1 month ago | 
statecourtreport.org | Mary Ziegler |Alicia Bannon |Julia R. Livingston |Diana Kasdan
An intermediate appellate court in Florida teed up a major constitutional clash that could reshape abortion access and state law on parental and fetal rights. The case, Doe v. Uthmeier, began as a run-of-the-mill judicial bypass case — when a minor petitions a court for approval to do something that would usually require parental consent. In the 1970s, in the aftermath of Roe v.
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1 month ago | 
statecourtreport.org | Alicia Bannon |Bridget Lavender |Geeta Tewari |Ochuwa Garuba
Last week, Massachusetts’s highest court unanimously ruled that the commonwealth’s Department of Children and Families violated the Massachusetts Constitution when it vaccinated a child temporarily in its custody despite the religious objections of her parents. It was a significant religious freedom ruling at a time when declining public trust in vaccines is likely to make such conflicts more common.
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1 month ago | 
statecourtreport.org | Constance Van Kley |Alicia Bannon |Douglas Keith |Maya Adhikari
A Montana court decision shows how state protections for privacy and against discrimination may invalidate laws defining sex as binary. Constance Van Kley is an assistant professor at the Blewett School of Law at the University of Montana. She was involved in her private capacity in the early stages of the Edwards v. Montana litigation.
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1 month ago | 
statecourtreport.org | Justin Lam |Erin Smith |Alicia Bannon
The court approved a law to strip the governor’s election board powers, risking creating a precedent for partisan power-grabbing. Last week, the North Carolina Court of Appeals upheld the legislature’s power grab over the State Boards of Elections, the agency charged with administering elections, campaign finance disclosures, and all 100 county election boards.
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1 month ago | 
statecourtreport.org | Erin Smith |Justin Lam |Alicia Bannon
Judge Jefferson Griffin (R), who had attempted to have more than 60,000 votes thrown out in his race for a North Carolina Supreme Court seat, has conceded to incumbent Justice Allison Riggs (D). His action ends a dispute that extended six months after the 2024 election and played out in both state and federal courts. Griffin’s concession came just two days after a federal district court judge ordered the election be certified.
