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Supreme Court of the United States

University of Georgia School of Law

2023

Precedent

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State Constitutional Law: Standing To Litigate Public Rights In Georgia Courts, Randy Beck Jan 2023

State Constitutional Law: Standing To Litigate Public Rights In Georgia Courts, Randy Beck

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State courts interpreting state constitutions face the recurring issue of how much weight to afford Supreme Court of the United States precedent addressing comparable questions under the United States Constitution. At one end of the spectrum, many state courts routinely engage in what federal Judge Jeffrey Sutton calls “lockstepping,” importing federal doctrine wholesale into state decisional law. For a court engaged in lockstepping, concepts like freedom of speech or equal protection of the laws under a state constitution mean whatever the U.S. Supreme Court interprets them to mean under the federal Constitution, even if the state provision differs in potentially …