Plus: DC’s need for stronger home rule, lawsuits against pregnancy surveillance, and more


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This week, I’m turning over the essay to Kathrina Szymborski Wolfkot, State Court Report’s managing editor.

—Alicia Bannon

This month, the Michigan Supreme Court announced

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that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for people under the age of 21 violate the state constitution’s ban on cruel or unusual punishment. The court also held, based on a separate recent decision

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, that this rule applies retroactively. These decisions are the latest from a court that’s been steadily carving out a path against excessive sentencing.

Under the federal Constitution, such sentences are illegal only for people under 18

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. Laws that require a judge to condemn children to live the rest of their lives in prison, the U.S. Supreme Court has explained

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, are unconstitutional because kids’ “transient rashness, proclivity for risk, and inability to assess consequences” make them less culpable, and because brain science shows “fundamental differences between juvenile and adult minds.”

In extending those protections to young adults, the Michigan high court pointed to similar research showing that “19- and 20-year-olds are more similar to juveniles in neurological terms than they are to older adults.” The court also noted that only in recent decades did life-in-prison sentences frequently come without the possibility of early release — reflecting a nationwide shift toward punitive excess

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that started in the 1970s. Until 1969, the court said, most people sentenced to life without parole in Michigan were released after less than 24 years because of good-behavior credits and other sentence-reduction mechanisms.

Michigan’s supreme court is the third state high court to expand protections against mandatory life without parole to 20-year-olds. Washington’s was the first

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, in 2021. Last year, Massachusetts’s went even further, declaring

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not only that mandatory life-without-parole sentences are unconstitutional for older adolescents — that is, sentences required by statute that leave no discretion to the judge — but that people under 21 cannot be sentenced to die in prison under any circumstances.

Michigan courts have protected youths from extreme prison terms in other ways too. In 2022’s People v. Stovall

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, the high court held that life in prison — even with the possibility of parole — was unconstitutional for children convicted of second-degree murder, which encompasses non-premeditated killings. Earlier this year, a Michigan appellate court held in People v. Eads

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that 50-year minimum sentences for kids are constitutionally equivalent to the life sentences struck down in Stovall.

While Michigan courts

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are undeniably part of a trend

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against excessive sentencing for youths, they stand out for the breadth of their recent expansions of the rights of people ensnared in the criminal justice system. Last summer, for example, the Michigan Supreme Court held

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that requiring someone without any sex-related convictions to register as a sex offender violated the state constitution. (It may seem obvious that sex offender registries should be reserved for people convicted of sex-related crimes, but registries in most states include people whose crimes had no sexual component, like stalking or false imprisonment.)

More groundbreaking criminal justice cases are potentially still to come in Michigan. The supreme court heard oral arguments this month in a case

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about whether the state constitution offers greater protections than the U.S. Constitution against double jeopardy, a term for prosecuting the same person multiple times for the same crime. Last month, the court heard arguments

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over whether mandatory lifetime sex offender registration and electronic monitoring are unconstitutional. And it is considering

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a challenge

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to mandatory life-without-parole sentences for adults convicted of “felony murder

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,” a charge sometimes brought if a death occurred while the defendant was allegedly committing a separate felony, even if there was no intent to kill.

Meanwhile, the court’s composition may be the friendliest it’s ever been to criminal justice reform. Kimberly Ann Thomas, who founded

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a juvenile justice clinic at the University of Michigan Law School and was lead counsel

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for the defendant in the felony murder challenge, won a seat

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on the court in last fall’s election. And Chief Justice Elizabeth Clement, who has consistently dissented in cases extending protections against excessive sentencing, left the court

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this month.

This week, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced

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she would appoint state appellate judge Noah Hood to replace Clement. As a result, six of the seven justices will have been either endorsed by the Democratic Party or appointed by a Democratic governor. Hood will serve the remainder of Clement’s term, which runs through the end of 2026, and will thereafter have to run in a nonpartisan election for an additional eight-year term. Elections to the Michigan Supreme Court are considered nonpartisan

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because candidates do not have a party label next to their name on the ballot, but they can be nominated by political parties during their conventions.

With these recent changes, the Michigan high court will almost certainly maintain a leading role in the expansion of rights for individuals accused or convicted of crimes.





North Carolina Could Be on the Verge of a Constitutional Crisis

If judges are not seen as “impartial umpires,” election disputes “can break a constitution,” writes incoming University of North Carolina law professor Marcus Gadson about the North Carolina Supreme Court’s April 11 decision

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that left open the possibility of tossing enough votes to affect the outcome of a state supreme court election. A federal appellate court has stayed

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that decision while litigation is ongoing. Read more

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DC Needs Stronger Home Rule

“The U.S. legislative and executive branches have extensive control over Washington, DC’s laws and policies,” writes Georgetown Law’s Meryl Justin Chertoff, who says that a legislative “home rule” more closely resembling those of other major U.S. cities would offer DC more stability. Read more

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Virginia Courts Revisit State Constitutional Interpretation

The Virginia Supreme Court’s 2023 decision

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announcing greater state protection of religious liberties than under federal law “marked a significant turning point in Virginia constitutional interpretation,” writes Lisa M. Lorish, a judge on the state’s court of appeals. Read more

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Massachusetts’s Constitution Is Both the Country’s Oldest and Ahead of Its Time

Throughout history, the Massachusetts Constitution has offered broader rights protections than its federal counterpart, including to formerly enslaved people, racial minorities, and same-sex couples, writes Northeastern University School of Law’s Martha F. Davis in the latest entry in State Court Report’s 50-state series

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. Read more

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Lawsuits Claim Pregnancy Surveillance Violates State Constitutions

A New Jersey case highlights the stories of pregnant women who were tested for drugs without their knowledge and received positive results after having eaten poppyseed bagels, writes attorney Julia R. Livingston. Another case alleges that pregnancy surveillance in Vermont violates state constitutional rights to bodily and medical autonomy. Read more

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What the Wisconsin Supreme Court Election Results Mean for Abortion

This month’s race for an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court was the most expensive judicial contest ever. “The race attracted so much attention partly because the court is set to decide two major abortion cases this year,” explains University of California, Davis School of Law professor Mary Ziegler. Read more

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Ohio Supreme Court Justice Attempts to Address Criticisms of Originalism

According to Justice Patrick DeWine, requiring courts to ground interpretations in state-specific values at the time of a provision’s adoption compels the judiciary to engage with the distinct policy choices that the state has pursued within its constitutional framework, writes legal scholar Ainslee Johnson-Brown. Read more

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What Else We’re Reading and Watching

State Court Report contributor and University of California, Davis law professor Mary Ziegler’s new book, Personhood: The New Civil War over Reproduction, is out this week. Read an excerpt here

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.

State Court Report collected information on state high court clerkship opportunities and their application processes to create a free resource for potential clerkship applicants. The resource features clerkship opportunities from 19 states and more than 95 justices and is available here

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.





You May Have Missed

A Utah district court judge ruled

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that the state’s $100 million school voucher program violates the state constitution because, among other things, it’s not open to all Utah children. State Court Report previously wrote

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about the increasingly blurry line between public and private schools.





Notable Cases

LeMieux v. Evers

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, Wisconsin Supreme Court

Held, in a divided decision, that the governor did not exceed his partial veto authority when he altered budget bill digits, extending a school funding increase from 2 to 402 years. State Court Report previously covered

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the case. // WPR

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McCombie v. Illinois State Board of Elections

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, Illinois Supreme Court

Refused to accept an original action by the state’s house majority leader and voters claiming that house districts drawn in 2021 are partisan and not compact, finding the complaint untimely. The dissent said that the majority shouldn’t have discredited plaintiffs’ argument that they needed to collect data from multiple election cycles. // WTTW

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State ex rel. Hilgers v. Evnen

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, Nebraska Supreme Court

Unanimously upheld portions of a 2023 criminal justice reform law expanding parole eligibility, finding that the provisions do not result in substitution of a milder punishment for the one originally imposed, and therefore do not infringe on the Board of Pardons’ constitutionally granted exclusive commutation power. // Nebraska Examiner

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You can find briefs and opinions from notable state constitutional lawsuits in our State Case Database

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.









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