What You’ll Read:
- Vacancies & Elections: Control of Wisconsin Supreme Court goes to the voters; Republican North Carolina judges hear Republican candidate’s bid to overturn election; the Michigan Supreme Court heads to a 6-1 Dem majority; the first Black and Latina justice in Arizona; the Georgia justice who John Lewis said opposed “everything I have stood for during my career” steps down
- Michigan Court of Appeals: ‘De Facto’ Life Sentences Violate State Constitution
- SLRI Files Amicus Briefs Challenging Excessive Punishments in California, Michigan, and Wyoming
- New York Chief Judge Rowan Wilson Advocates Second Chances
- State Supreme Courts Re-Commit To Diversity & Equity
- Case Notes: State courts are revealing police misconduct
- Reports & Scholarship: Kristen Bell on little-used but potentially powerful “unnecessary rigor” clauses; Daniel Loehr on the eugenics origins of “habitual offender” sentencing; Will Berry “unlock[s]” state anti-punishment clauses
Vacancies & Elections:
- Whether the Wisconsin Supreme Court retains its liberal majority or reverts back to conservative control will be decided on April 1. Groups funded by Elon Musk have spent more than $10 million to support Republican-backed Brad Schimel against liberal Susan Crawford. [Bolts | Debate Coverage | AP]
- After Republican Jefferson Griffin lost the North Carolina Supreme Court election to current Justice Allison Riggs by about 750 votes, he sued to throw out more than 65,000 ballots. A three-judge panel (two Republicans and one Democrat) on the state’s intermediate Court of Appeals will hear argument in the case on Friday, with big implications for how the case will reach the state supreme court: With Riggs recused, a 3-3 split on the state high court would affirm whatever the court of appeals decides. [The Carolina Journal]
- Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Elizabeth Clement will step down in April, giving Gov. Gretchen Whitmer an appointment to make the court 6-1 Democratic. Justice Megan Cavanagh will be the new chief justice. [AP | Detroit Free Press]
- Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs appointed Maria Elena Cruz to the state supreme court. Justice Cruz, a former prosecutor who also briefly served as a public defender, is the court’s first Latina and Black member. [AP]
- Georgia Chief Justice Michael Boggs will step down next month. Boggs, a conservative Democrat, is known nationally as President Obama’s nominee to the U.S. District Court who civil rights leaders (including the late Georgia Congressman John Lewis) opposed and defeated. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp will appoint a new justice to complete Boggs’s term; applications are due April 7. [The Blackshear Times | Time Magazine]
Michigan Court of Appeals: ‘De Facto’ Life Sentences Violate State Constitution
Michigan state courts remain the epicenter of developing state antipunishment jurisprudence and continue to produce good news for civil rights. In 2022, the Michigan Supreme Court issued a series of rulings that protect youth and young adults from “cruel or unusual” prison terms, including one, People v. Stovall, holding that life in prison (even with the possibility of parole) is unconstitutional when imposed on youth for second degree murder. In that opinion, the court acknowledged that judges intent on sending kids to die in prison may still have a work-around, because they “could impose a long term-of-years sentence that would theoretically deprive a defendant of any chance of being paroled during their lifetime.” On January 15, the lower state Court of Appeals closed that loophole, deciding 2-1 in People v. Eads that a 50-year minimum sentence without hope of release until age 65 is, as a constitutional matter, no different from the formal life sentences struck down in Stovall.
The ruling could also have implications beyond the facts of this case. While the court struck down the 50-year minimum at issue here as a de facto life term, it left open whether the same reasoning might apply to shorter terms. Also, while this case and Stovall both involved second-degree murder, there are people in Michigan serving 50 years for non-homicide offenses committed before age 18; presumably this holding applies to those cases as well. Prosecutors are seeking review in the state supreme court. [Full opinion in People v. Eads | Dissent | Bloomberg Law]
In another 2022 case, the Michigan Supreme Court barred mandatory life without parole sentences for 18-year-olds. In January, the court heard oral argument on whether that rule should apply retroactively and extend to people up to age 21. Video of those arguments, along with a case challenging life without parole under the “felony murder” doctrine—which allows murder convictions for people who neither killed nor intended to kill—is here: People v. Czarnecki & People v. Taylor (extending protections to people ages 19 & 20); People v. Poole (retroactivity); People v. Langston (felony murder).
SLRI Files Amicus Briefs Challenging Excessive Punishments in California, Michigan, and Wyoming. The State Law Research Initiative (SLRI) started 2025 (and ended 2024) by filing amicus briefs in support of challenges to excessive criminal punishments in three state supreme courts, joining state and national partners to argue for more expansive state constitutional rights in California, Michigan, and Wyoming. [Read More: SLRI Newsletter & Blog]
New York Chief Judge Rowan Wilson On Second Chances
In his State of the Judiciary address, Chief Judge Rowan Wilson last month urged the state legislature to pass the Second Look Act, a bill that would allow courts to reassess the prison terms of people serving 10 years or longer, with the broader goal of reducing “the harms caused by New York’s history of imposing overly harsh sentences, including those required by mandatory minimums.” Judge Wilson—who has led a judicial “sea change” toward more expansive individual rights—addressed the failures of excessive prison terms and the vital role that state courts must play in reversing them. “If you stick with the traditional model, then a judge is making a determination about how long to incarcerate someone shortly after the person has committed a crime,” he said. “And it’s sort of blind to the possibility that people change.” More: Watch Chief Judge Wilson, California Supreme Court Justice Goodwin Liu, & Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Justice Scott Kafker discuss state constitutional rights against excessive punishment at SLRI’s 2024 symposium.
State Supreme Courts Re-Commit To Diversity & Equity. As the Trump administration resegregates America while erasing people of color from American history, at least two state supreme courts have reaffirmed their commitment to diverse, inclusive, and equitable justice systems. In an open letter, the New Mexico State Supreme Court said that as “we face challenges and pushback at the federal level against inclusivity efforts, the Supreme Court of New Mexico affirms our commitment to these values. As stewards of justice, we recognize that a just legal system must reflect and respect the diverse communities that it serves.” Likewise, members of the Washington Supreme Court—a diverse body that includes five justices of color, six women, and LGTBQ+ and disability representation—told students during a Q&A that reflecting the broad community they serve improves decisionmaking. Justice Raquel Montoya-Lewis called on the community to continue equity work “without having the support of the federal government,” while Justice Mary Yu said she would speak out as a person of color in a position of power. “Regardless of what anybody says … nobody’s going to erase me and my story and the fact that racism exists,” she said. [Los Alamos Daily Post | Cascadia Daily News | New Mexico Letter]
Case Notes
- New York Court of Appeals held that a 2020 law making “law enforcement disciplinary records” subject to Freedom of Information Law requests applies retroactively. Numerous states expanded public access to police discipline records in response to nationwide protests demanding policing reform, and this ruling is the latest example of state courts giving such laws full effect. [Full Opinion | Bloomberg Law]
- RELATED: After Seattle police officers who attended Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6 sued to block disclosure of their identities, the Washington Supreme Court held last month that the officers are unlikely to succeed and, crucially, cannot sue anonymously—effectively ordering disclosure. The opinion also added an accurate account of January 6 for posterity.
Reports & Scholarship
- Last March, I covered an amicus brief filed in the Colorado Supreme Court explaining that “habitual offender” sentencing laws, which currently exist in 49 states, are the product of abhorrent eugenics theory dating back to the early 1900s. This month the brief’s author, law professor Daniel Loehr, expands on this history in both a new law review article and a report published by The Sentencing Project.
- As part of SLRI’s symposium with the Rutgers Law Review, State Constitutions & The Limits of Criminal Punishments, law professor William Berry has this new article on Unlocking State Punishment Clauses. Prof. Berry notes that even when state courts decline to “lockstep” with federal 8th Amendment holdings under their own state antipunishment rights, they still rely on 8th Amendment doctrine. Berry questions this “analytical lock-stepping” and begins theorizing a more sensible and independent way to apply state constitutional rights. [SSRN]
- Five state constitutions have provisions that prohibit treating people who are arrested or in state custody with “unnecessary rigor,” an explicit constitutional protection with no federal analog. In a new article, State Constitutional Prohibitions against Unnecessary Rigor in Arrest and Confinement, law professor Kristen Bell argues that “the animating principle of the unnecessary rigor clause is to protect human dignity against overzealous use of power in state custody,” and that “excessive mandatory sentences, prolonged solitary confinement, failure to provide needed medical treatment, and unduly restrictive visitation policies are just a few examples of practices that can violate this animating principle.” [SSRN] [Related: Watch Prof. Bell discuss her research at SLRI’s symposium]