Document Type
Article
Abstract
State constitutions contain numerous rights-protecting provisions that are analogous to provisions of the United States Constitution. But lawyers and courts often ignored state constitutions. Even when courts interpreted state constitutions, they often followed an approach known as lockstepping: state constitutional rights were viewed as having the same meaning as analogous federal provisions, even when the state provisions had different wording and were adopted for different purposes at different times than their federal analogues. In recent decades, however, commentators and judges have claimed that state constitutions might afford greater protection to individual rights than the U.S. Constitution. The growth of the new judicial federalism, the notion that state constitutional provisions do not necessarily have the same meaning as their federal counterparts, raises questions about the status of state precedents that applied lockstepping construction of state constitutions. This essay suggests that we should approach that question carefully. It might be entirely appropriate to reject lockstepping as generally unsound, but we should not assume that a state constitutional provision necessarily means something different than its federal analogue. The essay discusses several key Ohio Supreme Court cases to illustrate its point.
Recommended Citation
Jonathan L. Entin, Stare Decisis After The Rejection of Lockstepping in State Constitutional Law: An Ohio Perspective, 17 ConLawNow 100 (2025)