State of Justice: May 2026 Cases in the Courts
Education
Wyoming
Degenfelder v. Wyoming Education Association
In a unanimous ruling, the Wyoming Supreme Court reversed a district judge’s grant of an injunction that blocked a universal school voucher program enacted by the state legislature in 2025 from taking effect. The injunction prevented the state superintendent from distributing funds for the program, which provides $7,000 per child in public money for private education costs. The Wyoming Education Association and several parents challenged the program, alleging that it allows taxpayer dollars to be spent on private schools in violation of the Wyoming Constitution. The court’s injunction would have allowed state education officials to fund the program while the lower court hears the merits of the challenge brought by the parents and the teachers’ union.
Election Administration
Missouri
Healey v. Missouri and Wise v. Missouri
The Missouri Supreme Court unanimously affirmed a lower court ruling that rejected a series of challenges to the state’s congressional district map, which was redrawn in September 2025 by Republicans in the Missouri Legislature. The challenges alleged that the new maps violated language in the Missouri Constitution that requires congressional districts to be contiguous, compact, and equal in population as much as possible. The lower court ruled the challengers had failed to meet their burden to demonstrate that the maps violated the constitution’s requirements, and the high court affirmed the lower court’s findings. The ruling will allow the map to remain in place for the 2026 midterm elections.
Pennsylvania
Honey v. Lycoming County Offices of Voter Services
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that election officials in Lycoming County must hand over 2020 voting records to an election conspiracy theorist and activist who currently works as the deputy assistant secretary for elections integrity at the Department of Homeland Security. The activist filed a public records request in 2021 that sought a digital copy of every vote cast in the 2020 election in Lycoming County. Notably, these were the same activists who claimed, without evidence, that more votes were cast in the 2020 election in Pennsylvania than there are voters in the state and were also involved in an audit of the 2020 vote in Maricopa County, Arizona, that was procedurally flawed and produced invalid data. The county denied the records request on the grounds that state election laws do not allow members of the public to access voting machine data. But the activist appealed the ruling to the state’s highest court, which ruled that disclosing the requested data would allow members of the public to check the data against election results posted by local election administrators, and ordered the county to release the data to the activist.
Virginia
Scott v. McDougle
In a 4-3 opinion, the Virginia Supreme Court affirmed a lower court’s ruling that struck down a mid-cycle congressional redistricting map, after previously permitting a referendum question seeking to adopt the maps to appear on a special election ballot in separate rulings issued in February and March. Voters approved the referendum in April, but a circuit court judge blocked it less than 24 hours after voting on the referendum had concluded. In affirming the circuit court, the state’s highest court agreed that the assembly had erred by holding its first vote on the measure after early voting for the legislature had already begun. The supreme court also agreed that the error rendered the entire amendment process void. Instead, the Virginia Constitution required two separate sessions of the Virginia General Assembly to approve a proposed constitutional amendment, and a legislative election to occur between the assembly sessions. The court noted that the state constitution prevented the courts from preemptively invalidating a proposed constitutional amendment before it had been considered by the voters to explain why it had previously issued two separate rulings allowing the measure to appear on ballots, only to invalidate it after voting had concluded. The assembly appealed the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to issue an emergency stay, effectively affirming the Virginia Supreme Court’s ruling and preventing the new maps from going into effect. Instead, Virginia must use the previously drawn maps for the 2026 midterm elections.
Environmental Protections
Pennsylvania
The Borough of West Chester v. Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education and West Chester University of Pennsylvania of the State System of Higher Education
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that tax-exempt entities cannot be required to pay costs associated with the mitigation of stormwater runoff imposed by municipal governments because the assessment of fees to pay for the costs functions as a tax that such entities are exempt from paying. The ruling upheld a lower court’s judgment in a case brought by a university against the county where the university is located after the county attempted to assess fees of over $130,000 per year to pay for the mitigation of stormwater runoff, which were calculated based on the amount of impervious surfaces on the university’s property. The university argued that the fee’s structure renders it indistinguishable from a tax, which the university cannot be required to pay because it is a tax-exempt organization. The ruling will release all tax-exempt organizations in Pennsylvania from the obligation to pay the fees, and will force taxpayers to shoulder more of the burden of paying for stormwater runoff mitigation, which is required but not funded by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, and is necessary to prevent flooding of roads and buildings during heavy rains.
Executive Authority and Civil Liberties
Maine
Adult Guardianship and Conservatorship of R.
The Maine Supreme Court ruled that people in guardianships or conservatorships have a right to effective legal counsel. The ruling came after a disabled man petitioned a county probate court to terminate his guardianship and alleged that the attorney who represented him was ineffective after the probate court denied his petition. The ruling enshrines a new right for people in guardianships or conservatorships to have effective legal counsel where no such right previously existed and creates a process for people under guardianships or conservatorships to challenge the effectiveness of their legal counsel.
Oklahoma
Keenan v. Russ
In a 5-3 ruling, the Oklahoma Supreme Court held that a 2022 state law requiring state government entities to divest from financial organizations that boycott fossil fuel and energy companies violates the state constitution. Public organizations impacted by the law sued the state in 2023 to block its enforcement, alleging that it forced state employee pension systems to end their relationships with certain fund managers at a cost of millions of dollars to the employees and retirees enrolled in the pension systems and their beneficiaries. Administrators of the pension systems argued that the state constitution requires them to act solely in the interest of pension system participants and their beneficiaries, and that divesting from blacklisted companies would prevent them from fulfilling their duties to the participants and beneficiaries. In its ruling, the court also affirmed a lower court judge’s permanent injunction prohibiting the state treasurer from enforcing the law.
Texas
In re Greg Abbott and In re State of Texas
The Texas Supreme Court declined to remove lawmakers from office who fled the state in 2025 to prevent a vote on new congressional maps by breaking the body’s quorum, as requested in an emergency petition filed by Gov. Greg Abbot (R). Abbot’s petition asked the court to expel the lawmakers from their positions. The court emphasized the need to respect separation-of-powers limits and noted that the Republican majority in the legislature had resolved the problem without court intervention by imposing fines on the fleeing lawmakers, who eventually returned to the state on their own and allowed a vote on the maps to proceed. Accordingly, the court declined to grant quo warranto relief, which would have declared the targeted lawmakers’ seats vacant.
Washington
Heywood v. Hobbs
The Washington Supreme Court ruled that opponents of the state’s newly enacted income tax cannot attempt to repeal the tax through a referendum campaign and must instead use a citizen initiative process, holding that the state constitution protects laws that fund state government systems from repeal efforts that use referendum campaigns. The new scheme assesses a 9.9% tax on incomes over $1 million annually beginning in 2028 and is intended to fund state government operations and existing public institutions. The ruling will require opponents of the tax who are seeking its repeal to collect 308,911 valid signatures before the July 2, 2026, deadline to qualify for the ballot as a citizen initiative, rather than the 154,455 signatures required for referendum campaigns to attain ballot access. The court’s ruling does not affect a separate lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the new income tax scheme.
Immigration
Michigan
Amendment of Rule 8.115 of the Michigan Court Rules
The Michigan Supreme Court adopted a new rule that prohibits law enforcement officers from making civil arrests, including immigration arrests, in state and municipal courtrooms. The rule prohibits the arrests of people who are in or near courthouses because they are required to be present at a court proceeding as a party, an attorney, a witness, or a juror. The rule does not apply to criminal or court-ordered arrests and is not applicable to federal immigration courts within the state. The court began considering the rule change at the urging of concerned citizens and community organizations after federal immigration enforcement agents detained a US citizen outside a suburban Detroit courthouse. The rule change is intended to alleviate concerns that people who are attempting to handle legal matters might be deterred from doing so by the prospect of arrest due to racial profiling or other actions by federal immigration enforcement agents.
LGBTQ+ Americans
Colorado
Boe v. Children’s Hospital Colorado
In a 5-2 ruling, the Colorado Supreme Court ordered the state’s largest provider of gender-affirming care to minors to resume treating patients after the hospital paused care for those patients earlier this year. The hospital stopped offering gender-affirming care, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy, to minors after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced it would launch an investigation into the hospital and the services it offers to minors seeking gender-affirming care. Several minors affected by the hospital’s suspension of gender-affirming care and their parents sued the hospital for discriminating against them, since it continued to offer puberty blockers and hormone therapy to minors who were not seeking the therapies for the purpose of affirming their gender identity. The court agreed with the children and their parents, holding that the children were more likely to suffer harm if they couldn’t receive treatment to affirm their gender identity than the hospital would be likely to experience as a result of the Department’s investigation.
Reproductive Rights
Alabama
Ex parte Oasis Family Birthing Center, LLC
The Alabama Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a lower court ruling that allowed the state’s Department of Public Health to require birth centers to become licensed as hospitals. Opponents of the department’s regulations filed a lawsuit alleging the requirements are burdensome, unnecessary, and may force birth centers in the state to cease operating, but the high court’s decision not to hear the appeal of the lower court’s ruling will allow the regulations to remain in place.
Indiana
Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai’i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky, Inc., et al. v. Members of the Medical Licensing Board of Indiana et al.
In a 4-1 decision, the Indiana Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in a 2025 ruling from the Indiana Court of Appeals that upheld a near-universal ban on abortion enacted by the Indiana Legislature in 2022. The law bans nearly all abortions and has limited exceptions for rape, incest, fatal fetal anomalies, and to protect the mother’s life or health. Reproductive rights groups alleged that the law violated provisions of the Indiana Constitution that protect the right to life and liberty. The appeals court ruled that the law does not violate the state constitution, and the high court’s decision not to hear the appeal allows the law to remain in effect.
