The U.S. Supreme Court finished its most recent term on Friday. Several of its rulings addressed the powers of state courts, while others are likely to affect the cases landing on state dockets. Here are some of the highlights.
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Probably the most significant case for state courts is one that didn’t have anything to do with them directly. In United States v. Skrmetti, the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors, rejecting a claim that the law violated equal protection under the U.S. Constitution. Skrmetti involved a question of federal constitutional law coming out of federal court litigation. But by upholding Tennessee’s law, the Supreme Court created a federal rights vacuum. Following a pattern that we’ve seen in everything from abortion to property rights, litigants will increasingly ask state courts and state constitutions to fill the void.
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We’ve already started to see state litigation challenging bans on gender-affirming care for minors. For example, a North Dakota trial court is expected to rule in the coming months on a lawsuit challenging a state ban. And in December, the Montana Supreme Court affirmed a preliminary injunction blocking that state’s ban, ruling that the law likely violated the state constitution’s express right to privacy. On the other side, the Texas Supreme Court last year upheld a state law banning certain medical treatments for transgender minors.
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Skrmetti also bypassed a number of legal questions, most notably whether laws discriminating against transgender people should be subject to a heightened level of judicial scrutiny. Another thing to watch is whether litigants will now try to avoid a Supreme Court ruling on this question by shifting more broadly to state strategies for transgender rights.
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Two other cases this term related to state courts more directly, reining in state judicial procedures to ensure compliance with federal law.
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In Williams v. Reed, the plaintiffs had faced substantial delays from the Alabama Department of Labor in processing their benefits claims. They sued in state court, claiming violations of their federal due process and statutory rights. But the Alabama Supreme Court rejected their suit, concluding that under state law they first needed to go through the state’s administrative process — whose delay was the entire basis of their lawsuit — before filing suit in state court. The Supreme Court concluded that this catch-22 effectively immunized Alabama
officials from lawsuits under the federal civil rights law at issue, Section 1983. In the face of that conflict, the Court explained, the state law was preempted by federal law and could not be applied by state courts.
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The second case, Glossip v Oklahoma, was a high-profile death penalty appeal coming out of the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals. After prosecutorial misconduct and withheld evidence came to light in Richard Glossip’s murder conviction, the state’s attorney general supported Glossip’s request to reopen his case and seek a new trial. But the court of criminal appeals, the highest criminal court in the state, ruled that his claims were procedurally barred under Oklahoma’s law governing post-conviction review.
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Death penalty post-conviction cases like Glossip’s are notorious for procedural mazes and traps for the unwary that the Supreme Court has largely blessed. But here, the Court stepped in to stop the execution and order a new trial. The Court explained that it had jurisdiction to review Glossip’s case because, ultimately, the Oklahoma court lacked an independent and adequate state ground for its decision. The state court’s ruling, the Court explained, rested on an erroneous analysis of a Supreme Court case governing prosecutors’ knowing use of false evidence. The
Court then looked at the evidence before it and the state attorney general’s own admission of error to conclude that a new trial was warranted. Glossip didn’t break much new ground by way of precedent, but it was significant because the Supreme Court so rarely intervenes in death penalty cases in the face of state procedural rulings.
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I’ll conclude with one final case, Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond, an expected blockbuster that fizzled. After an Oklahoma school board granted a charter to a Catholic school, the Oklahoma Supreme Court blocked the decision, ruling that the charter violated state law and the state constitution, as well as the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause.
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The U.S. Supreme Court took up an appeal, teeing up what looked poised to be a major religious freedom case that could mandate the creation of religious charter schools. But the Court, which only had eight justices available to consider the case due to a recusal by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, ended up dividing 4–4. The Oklahoma decision thus stands, and the Supreme Court’s ruling has no precedential force. That leaves states with the power, at least for now, to apply state laws to keep religious schools out of state charter
systems.
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Virtual Event
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The Trouble Between Trump and the States on Education Policy
Tuesday, July 15, 3–4 p.m. ET
President Trump has ordered cuts to the Department of Education and federal education funding, the brunt of which will fall on low-income communities. He is also demanding changes to school services and curriculums, including the elimination of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
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However, states are required by their constitutions to provide public education, and many must meet certain standards and provide student services. In cases where state obligations conflict with the administration’s orders, both state and federal judges may be called on to decide whether state law provides a xxxxxx against harmful federal policies.
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Join us for a discussion with education experts moderated by State Court Report Editor in Chief Alicia Bannon. The conversation will explore how the Trump administration’s actions have affected schools, how schools are responding, and how court fights over education policy may play out. RSVP today.
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States’ Reactions to Supreme Court’s Undermining of Property Rights
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On the 20th anniversary of controversial U.S. Supreme Court takings decision Kelo v. City of New London, George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin writes that the judicial and political backlash that followed highlights state constitutions’ role in protecting individual rights. But, he also notes, uneven state protections are no substitute for nationwide enforcement of the Constitution. Read more
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Next Steps After Supreme Court Upholds Ban on Gender-Affirming Care for Trans Youths
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State Court Report’s Kathrina Szymborski Wolfkot spoke to gender justice expert D Dangaran about the impact of the Skrmetti decision on the transgender community, potential legal strategies moving forward, and how state constitutions might offer greater protection for transgender rights. Read more
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State Politicians Broaden Attacks on Direct Democracy
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While democratic backsliding at the federal level is garnering much attention, another crisis is unfolding in the states as lawmakers seek to undermine citizens’ power to change their laws or constitutions by popular vote, writes litigator and former Brennan Center senior counsel Alice Clapman. Read more
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History of Same-Sex Marriage in the United States, and What’s Next
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Before Obergefell made marriage equality the law of the land in 2015, state courts, legislatures, and popular vote created a patchwork of legality for same-sex couples who wanted to marry and for married couples crossing state borders, writes Jordan Thompson Long of the Carter Center’s human rights program. Read more
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Extreme Heat Exacerbates Dire Prison Conditions, with Few Paths to Relief
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It is notoriously difficult for incarcerated plaintiffs to prevail on federal constitutional claims challenging inhumane conditions of confinement, including those resulting from climate change. But similar state constitutional claims could have a better chance of success, write the Brennan Center’s Ava Kaufman, Kathrina Szymborski Wolfkot, and Brianna Seid. Read
more
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The Puerto Rico Constitution: A Unique Territorial Framework
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“The 1952 constitution gave the island significant political authority over its internal governance while endowing its people with a robust catalogue of fundamental rights,” writes Rafael Cox Alomar, law professor and author of The Puerto Rico Constitution. But “the realities of a new and uncertain order at home and abroad require fresh thinking.” This essay is part of State Court Report’s series on the nation’s constitutions. Read more
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You May Have Missed
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- The New Mexico Court of Appeals ruled that the first legal challenge under the state constitution’s “pollution control” clause should be dismissed because the clause does not give individuals or groups any court-enforceable right to be free from a given level of pollution, or to a healthful environment. The plaintiffs alleged that the state has failed to adequately protect natural resources from the oil and gas industry’s pollution. An appeal has been filed. State Court Report previously covered the case.
- The Wisconsin Supreme Court refused to take up two original actions challenging the state’s congressional district map on the bases of partisan gerrymandering and malapportionment. State Court Report previously covered the status of partisan gerrymandering litigation in state court.
- Religious and immigration nonprofit organizations, among other plaintiffs, are challenging an agreement between a New York county police department and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that allegedly allows police officers to arrest residents they believe are in the United States illegally and execute ICE administrative warrants. State Court Report has written about the efforts of some states and local communities to resist ICE enforcement while other localities choose to support it.
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Notable Cases
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Kaul v. Urmanski, Wisconsin Supreme Court
Held that an 1849 law, which a local prosecutor had argued was a near-total abortion ban, is impliedly repealed as to abortion by subsequent legislation and does not ban the procedure in the state. State Court Report previously covered the argument in the case. // Associated Press
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Perez v. City of San Antonio, Texas Supreme Court
Held, in the court’s first interpretation of a 2021 “religious services” amendment to the state constitution, that the clause, where it applies, categorically bars government limits on religious services regardless of the government’s interest but does not extend to the government’s management of publicly owned lands. The court was responding to a certified question from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which is considering claims by members of an Indigenous church that city plans to improve a local park will destroy their sacred worship space. // Texas Public Radio
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State v. City of San Antonio, Texas 15th Court of Appeals
Blocked San Antonio from distributing payments from a $100,000 fund the city created to cover reproductive health care costs, which could include support for out-of-state travel for abortion care, pending the outcome of a full appeal. Analyzing the state constitution’s “gift clause” — which requires any distribution of public funds to private parties to have a predominantly public purpose — the newly created court preliminarily held that sending city “residents to undergo procedures outside the state that Texas prohibits” would not be a public purpose. // KSAT
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State v. Amble, Iowa Supreme Court
Reversed a 2021 holding that the state constitution’s search and seizure clause requires police to get a warrant before searching garbage put out for pickup, based on lawmakers’ subsequent enactment of a statute providing that garbage “shall be deemed abandoned property.” While the majority said this shift in “positive law” defining private property rights accounts for the change, a dissent criticized that position as contrary to “bedrock constitutional principles on multiple fronts.” // Des Moines Register
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You can find briefs and opinions from notable state constitutional lawsuits in our State Case Database.
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