scholarly journals Reflections on the Role of State Courts in the Vindication of State Constitutional Rights: A Plea for State Appellate Courts to Consider Unraised Issues of State Constitutional Law in Criminal Cases

2011 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Constitutional Law ◽  
State Courts ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Appellate Courts ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
State Appellate Courts ◽  
State Constitutional Law

State Constitutional Law in 1945–46

1946 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 703-728
Author(s):  
Jacobus Tenbroek ◽  
Howard Jay Graham
Keyword(s):  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Nuclear Physics ◽  
Price Control ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
Appellate Courts ◽  
National Politics ◽  
State Appellate Courts ◽  
Internal Pressures ◽  
State Constitutional Law

The end of the momentous year symbolized by the physical scientists' entrance into national politics and political scientists' introduction to nuclear physics finds state appellate courts focusing on problems of business and reconversion; professionally critical, if not apprehensive, of the course taken by their superior in Washington; dubious of the behavior of organized labor, yet divided upon both the desirability of judicial discipline and the proper means of administering it; maintaining their separate, often irreconcilable, views on regulation of business and agriculture; above all, enjoying, like their superiors and predecessors, the historic, self-imposed duty of fitting constitutional garments to institutional girth.How to constrict the swollen national waistline without risking grave internal pressures taxes ingenuity to the utmost. On the whole, a prudent realism still is evident in dealing with problems of price control. The restlessness and doubts noted last year, however, have persisted and find freer expression. Paradoxically, state enforcement of federal penalties is generally sustained, despite ancient but dissolving dogmas to the contrary; whereas coöperative state or municipal action designed to reinforce and supplement the Emergency Price Control Act has suffered serious reverses.

State Constitutional Law in 1929–1930

1930 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 666-686 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver P. Field
Keyword(s):  
Constitutional Law ◽  
State Courts ◽  
State Constitutions ◽  
Course Of Action ◽  
The Subject ◽  
State Constitutional Law

State courts determine, in the absence of constitutional provision to the contrary, whether amendments to state constitutions have been proposed and adopted in the manner provided for these constitutions. Not every minor deviation from the course of action marked out in the constitution for its amendment is deemed sufficient to justify the court in declaring that the amendment has been “unconstitutionally adopted,” but whether these deviations are serious enough to warrant such a declaration is a question to be determined by the courts themselves. Statutes supplementing constitutional provisions on the subject of amendment are valid if not in conflict with the constitutional provisions themselves, and substantial compliance with these rules is also required by the courts. Sometimes the provisions regulating the subject of publication of proposed amendments are constitutional; at other times they are statutory. In either case, publication in the manner provided for, and for the period of time provided for, is necessary to the validity of the amendment. Publication for two weeks, when the period should have been four weeks, was deemed sufficient by the Nebraska court to invalidate the amendment involved.

Does Judicial Selection Affect Judicial Performance? Evidence from a Natural Experiment

The Forum ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-50
Author(s):  
Mona Vakilifathi ◽  
Thad Kousser
Keyword(s):  
Objective Measure ◽  
State Courts ◽  
Reversal Rate ◽  
Appellate Courts ◽  
Trial Court ◽  
Supreme Courts ◽  
Trial Courts ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
State Appellate Courts ◽  
Judicial Performance

AbstractDo judges selected by merit review commissions perform better than elected judges or those directly appointed by elected officials? This is a central question in both the academic study of state judicial institutions and the policy discourse about how to reform them. To address it, we take advantage of the variation in the means of the selection for trial court judges within Arizona, a state comprised of appointed, elected, and merit-selected trial court judges. This unique context allows us to use an objective measure of judicial performance – the reversal rate of trial court cases appealed to Arizona’s state appellate courts – to evaluate judges by their means of selection. We gather an original dataset on 2919 cases heard by 176 judges, estimating multivariate models that control for characteristics of cases and of judges. Overall, we find that elected judges have a lower reversal rate than merit-selected judges. Our findings question the conventional wisdom in the state courts literature in favor of merit selection and against judicial elections, and encourage further work on the effects of judges’ means of selection beyond state supreme courts to include state appellate and trial courts.

Diversity of Constitutional Rights in Federal Systems

2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 302-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Céline Fercot
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
State Courts ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Positive Rights

The contribution of subnational constitutions to the development of constitutional law – Subnational recognition of a diversity of fundamental rights as symbol of constitutional autonomy – Identical, less protective and more protective subnational rights – Diversity in sources, uniformity in application – Positive rights and the provision of public goods – federal courts and state courts: federal chemistry and constitutional laboratories

Part II Rights Guarantees under State Constitutions: the New Judicial Federalism, 7 Lockstepping State Constitutional Rights with Federal Constitutional Law

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Williams Robert F
Keyword(s):  
Constitutional Law ◽  
The State ◽  
State Courts ◽  
Equal Protection ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Equal Protection Clause ◽  
State Constitutions ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Judicial Federalism ◽  
Federal Constitutional

This chapter discusses the practice — adopted by a number of state courts — of stating that state constitutional rights provisions will be interpreted identically to, or in “lockstep” with, similar or identical federal constitutional rights provision. State courts do this in a variety of ways, ranging from cases where they do not seem to acknowledge the possible difference between state and federal rights protections; to case-by-case adoption of federal constitutional interpretations; to “prospective lockstepping” where they announce that in the future the state and federal rights provisions will be interpreted identically or according to some other similar formulation. The chapter gives examples of these different approaches, as well as variations on them. It includes a specific focus on the wide range of state constitutional equality provisions, which, according to many state courts, are to be interpreted the same way as the federal Equal Protection Clause. These various forms of prospective lockstepping are criticized, on the grounds that they cannot actually represent “holdings” and are therefore not binding on future courts.

Why Habeas Review of State Court Convictions Is More Important than Ever

2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 292-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn Adelman ◽  
Jon Deitrich
Keyword(s):  
Third Party ◽  
State Courts ◽  
State Court ◽  
The Political ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Habeas Corpus ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Political Pressure ◽  
Judicial Elections ◽  
Federal Judges

This article discusses the continued importance of rigorous habeas corpus review of state court convictions, particularly those obtained in states with an elected judiciary. Given the political pressures faced by elected judges and the tremendous amounts of money now being spent by candidates and third party groups in state judicial elections, it is highly doubtful that state courts can sufficiently protect and enforce the constitutional rights of unpopular litigants such as the criminally accused. An emerging body of research demonstrates that political pressure does indeed affect the manner in which judges rule in criminal cases. Accordingly, habeas corpus review by life-tenured federal judges should, if anything, be expanded, rather than reduced or eliminated, as some have argued.

State Constitutional Law in 1948–49

1949 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 735-765
Author(s):  
Foster H. Sherwood
Keyword(s):  
Constitutional Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
State Courts ◽  
Equal Protection ◽  
Constitutional Amendment ◽  
Police Power ◽  
Governmental Organization ◽  
Full State ◽  
The Subject ◽  
State Constitutional Law

The ever-increasing volume of litigation in state courts has made it necessary to exclude this year all decisions of courts other than those of last resort. In addition, with respect to subjects such as “police power” and “equal protection,” where classification or analysis of the decisions would require space out of all proportion to their importance, only a listing of the subjects involved in the case is attempted. The cases fall generally into the pattern used last year.I. GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION1. Special Constitutional Provisions. The effective date of a new constitutional amendment was the subject of two decisions this year. In one, the amendment extending the term of office of county attorneys from two to four years was approved at a general election in which county attorneys were elected. The court held that the officers elected then were elected for the longer term, even though the amendment by its own terms did not become operative until the January following the election. This was so, even though the required local notice of the amendment omitted the effective date, since full state-wide notice was published by the secretary of state. The other case holds that the amendment becomes effective on the date of the canvass of votes rather than on the date of the election. Here, too, there were irregularities in the published notice in that it was not published in all counties on the same days and minor inconsistencies appeared in the printed versions. The court held that the purpose of notice had been substantially served.

State Constitutional Law in 1940–1941

1941 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 683-700
Author(s):  
Charles Aikin
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Courts ◽  
Appellate Courts ◽  
Administrative Authority ◽  
Review State ◽  
State Constitutional Law

The increase in judicial restraint noted a year ago has again been in evidence during the period under review. State courts, in following the lead of the United States Supreme Court, have construed police power liberally and have spoken out in defense of civil rights. Noteworthy, as well, has been the practice of these courts to construe strictly the power of the governor in this period of expanding administrative authority. The tendency of state courts to uphold experimental legislation, in line with the doctrine established by Nebbia v. New York rather than founded on liberty of contract and separation of powers precepts, has not been uniform. Federal decisions which recently have been greatly weakened but not expressly overruled still serve as guide-posts for some appellate courts.

A Good Sentencing Precedent is Hard to Find

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 138-144
Author(s):  
Brian A. Jacobs
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
College Admissions ◽  
The Body ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Federal Sentencing

In federal criminal cases, federal law requires that judges consider the sentences other courts have imposed in factually similar matters. Courts and parties, however, face significant challenges in finding applicable sentencing precedents because judges do not typically issue written sentencing opinions, and transcripts of sentencings are not readily available in advanced searchable databases. At the same time, particularly since the Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in United States v. Booker, sentencing precedent has come to play a significant role in federal sentencing proceedings. By way of example, this article discusses recent cases involving defendants with gambling addictions, and recent cases involving college admissions or testing fraud. The article explores the ways the parties in those cases have used sentencing precedent in their advocacy, as well as the ways the courts involved have used sentencing precedent to justify their decisions. Given the important role of sentencing precedent in federal criminal cases, the article finally looks at ways in which the body of sentencing law could be made more readily available to parties and courts alike.

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