51Æ·²è

This case asks whether a 12-year-old boy was in custody and entitled to Miranda warnings during a closed-door police interrogation by a school resource officer in the school building. The court of appeals held that he was not in custody, not entitled to Miranda warnings, and voluntarily incriminated himself. The 51Æ·²è’s State Supreme Court Initiative and the 51Æ·²è of Wisconsin filed an amicus brief arguing that admitting the boy’s statements into evidence not only violated the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution but Article I, Section 8 of the Wisconsin Constitution, and urging the Wisconsin Supreme Court to rest its decision on the state charter to better protect Wisconsinites’ civil liberties.

This case asks whether it violates equal protection principles to impose a prison sentence, instead of probation, based on a defendant’s inability to purchase a house. The 51Æ·²è’s State Supreme Court Initiative and the 51Æ·²è of Iowa filed an amicus brief arguing that imposing a harsher sentence based on a criminal defendant’s inability to purchase a home impinges on the equal protection guarantees in the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and article I, sections 1 and 6 of the Iowa Constitution.

This case asks whether the government can elicit inculpatory statements from a defendant by giving him misleading information about his rights and applying coercive pressure, then using the statements against him in a criminal case. The 51Æ·²è’s State Supreme Court Initiative and the 51Æ·²è of Michigan filed an amicus brief arguing that such actions by the government violate a defendant’s rights under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and, independently, Article 1, Section 17 of the Michigan Constitution, which affords even broader protections against self-incrimination than the Fifth Amendment.

This case presents two questions: first, whether, under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article I, section 7 of the Tennessee Constitution, Union City Police Department officers possessed probable cause to conduct a warrantless search of the defendant’s vehicle based exclusively on the alleged odor of cannabis, and second, whether the Court of Appeals had jurisdiction to overturn the defendant’s conviction. The 51Æ·²è’s Criminal Reform Legal Project and State Supreme Court Initiative, along with the 51Æ·²è of Tennessee filed an amicus brief arguing first, that after Tennessee’s legalization of hemp in 2019, an officer’s alleged detection of the odor of cannabis is insufficient to establish probable cause to conduct a warrantless search of a vehicle in Tennessee, and second, that the court of appeals improperly held that it lacked jurisdiction to overturn the defendant’s conviction.