State Constitutional Law: Cases and Materials

by Robert F. Williams

State Constitutional Law is designed to provide the basis for a lively and exciting two or three credit course in an area of law that has become increasingly important to a variety of law practices. Now, more than ever, lawyers, judges and law professors are discovering the importance of state constitutions and the judicial interpretations of these constitutions. A major focus of the book is the substantial differences between detailed the state constitutions and the more-familiar brief federal constitution that was the focus of the students' Constitutional Law course.

The Fifth edition of State Constitutional Law follows the basic structure and philosophy of earlier editions. The text explores the many common themes that appear in the body of constitutional law of all states, but also focuses on the importance of the unique history, language and judicial understanding of each state's constitution in resolving particular issues, including the political context in which state constitutions have evolved; the popular participation in the processes of state constitutional change; the individual rights provisions that have no federal parallel; the wide range of policy matters that are entrenched in state constitutions rather than ordinary statutes, and the motivations for using this unusual method of "lawmaking"; the roles of each of the departments of state government and the way in which separation of powers doctrines may operate quite differently at the state level; and the variety of processes, including judicial review, of state constitutional change and amendment. Major elements of state constitutional law such as education, local government and finance and taxation are accorded separate chapters.

In addition, State Constitutional Law remains an important one-volume resource for practitioners and academics on virtually all aspects of American state constitutions.
Among the changes in the new edition are:


•  Extended discussion of the issue of same-sex marriage under state constitutions;

•  Revised and expanded discussion of issues concerning the federal-state relationship;

•  Updated cases and scholarly commentary on individual rights and separation of powers issues;

•  Expanded focus on state constitutional positive rights, in contrast to the federal constitution's negative rights;

•  New and revised Notes and Questions in nearly every section of the book.

The eBook versions of this title feature links to Lexis Advance for further legal research options.

Genres: Politics, Legal

1204 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Robert Franklin Williams (February 26, 1925 – October 15, 1996) was an American civil rights leader and author best known for serving as president of the Monroe, North Carolina chapter of the NAACP in the 1950s and into 1961. He succeeded in integrating the local public library and swimming pool in Monroe. At a time of high racial tension and official abuses, Williams promoted armed Black self-defense in the United States. In addition, he helped gain support for gubernatorial pardons in 1959 for two young African-American boys who had received lengthy reformatory sentences in what was known as the Kissing Case of 1958.

Williams obtained a charter from the National Rifle Association and set up a rifle club to defend Black people in Monroe from Ku Klux Klan or other attackers. The local chapter of the NAACP supported Freedom Riders who traveled to Monroe in the summer of 1961 in a test of integrating interstate buses. In August 1961 he and his wife left the United States for several years to avoid kidnapping charges after a white couple got lost in the black part of town in Monroe. The local police and the FBI allegedly convinced the couple to say Williams had kidnapped them, and the FBI put out a warrant for his arrest, causing him to flee to Cuba, and, later, the People's Republic of China. These charges were dropped by the state when his trial opened in 1975 following his return in 1970.

Williams' book Negroes with Guns (1962) has been reprinted many times, most recently in 2013. It details his experience with violent racism and his disagreement with the non-violent wing of the Civil Rights Movement. The text was widely influential; Black Panther Party founder Huey Newton and African American Defense League founder Mauricelm-Lei Millere cited it as a major inspiration.

Reviews

[Kara · Rating 3 out of 5]

State constitutional law is fascinating subject matter, but this book is choppy and the editing is somewhat poor. As far as I know, sadly, it is the only casebook on state constitutional law. So, if you want to understand how state constitutional law is unique from federal constitutional law, this is pretty much it. =P