HARRISBURG — The Nov. 4 election saw three Democratic state Supreme Court justices easily retain their seats, virtually ensuring the party’s majority for at least another few years.
That could be significant for a lot of major cases pending before the court, on issues ranging from abortion to elections to criminal justice. The state Supreme Court often has the final say on major policy decisions that affect virtually every Pennsylvanian.
However, the seven justices have few hard deadlines and can take years to render their opinions on critical issues.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court hears appeals from the state’s two lower appellate courts — Commonwealth and Superior — and has discretion about the cases it considers. When the court agrees to hear a case, it builds in months for appellants and petitioners to file briefs. It schedules oral arguments during only a handful of months each year and provides months for justices to write opinions, typically resulting in a long process.
Here are some of the major cases currently awaiting consideration or a decision.
Abortion
In 2019, abortion providers sued the state, claiming a prohibition on Medicaid-funded abortions violates the Equal Rights Amendment and other provisions in the state constitution that target sex-based discrimination.
Since then, the case has slowly made its way through the appellate courts. Commonwealth Court dismissed the case in 2021, only for the state Supreme Court in early 2024 to reverse that ruling.
In its majority decision, the court set a new precedent by ruling that any law that creates a sex-based distinction is “presumptively unconstitutional” unless the state can prove the distinction is necessary. They then sent the case back to a lower court to decide whether the law is illegal. Commonwealth Court heard arguments in February of this year and again in early November. It’s not clear when the judges will issue a ruling.
Commonwealth Court’s ruling will likely be appealed once more, sending the decision back up to the state Supreme Court. As Dougherty noted in his concurring and dissenting opinion on the original ruling, there’s “little doubt the issue eventually will make its way back” to the high court.
Read more: Allegheny Reproductive Health Center v. Pennsylvania Department of Human Services
Climate change
In November 2023, Commonwealth Court struck down Pennsylvania’s participation in RGGI, which caps the amount of carbon that emitters within participating states’ borders can release, and put the program in a long limbo.
Former Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf had entered RGGI through an executive order, and a group of power producers and a coalition of Republican lawmakers each filed separate lawsuits challenging the move. The power producers focused on arguing that RGGI constitutes a tax, not a fee; the lawmakers argued that Wolf usurped their authority by imposing what they also considered to be a tax.
In both suits, Commonwealth Court ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor and directed the state to stop the process of joining RGGI.
During his first year in office, current Gov. Josh Shapiro, also a Democrat, appealed the decision to the state Supreme Court.
The high court functionally consolidated the two cases and held oral arguments last May. It has yet to issue a ruling, and it is unclear when one is coming.
Supporters of the program, however, have raised alarm bells that Shapiro may pull out of the initiative as a part of ongoing budget negotiations before the court reaches a ruling.
Read more: Shirley v. Pennsylvania Legislative Reference Bureau; Bowfin KeyCon Holdings, LLC v. Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection
Gun control
Pennsylvania’s two most populous cities, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, both have tried to legislate gun control on a local level. However, the state’s firearm preemption law bars local jurisdictions from creating gun control restrictions that are more stringent than those at the state level.
Late in 2024, several years of litigation ended with the state Supreme Court ruling that the firearm preemption should stand, with Justice Kevin Brobson writing that “there is nothing for us to do in the absence of a constitutional violation or other infirmity” with the state law.
In Philadelphia, advocates and the families of victims first sued the state in 2020, arguing that the increased violence as a result of the lack of gun control laws deprives residents of their right to life and liberty under the state constitution. In 2022, Commonwealth Court dismissed the case, and the plaintiffs appealed that ruling. The state Supreme Court heard oral arguments in September 2023.
In Pittsburgh, gun rights advocates sued after City Council passed laws banning some semiautomatic weapons and ammunition, and creating extreme risk protection orders that allow for the temporary confiscation of firearms. The advocates argued the measures infringed upon the preemption law and won a victory in Commonwealth Court in 2022.
The case was appealed to the state Supreme Court but placed on hold pending the decision of the Philly case, according to a spokesperson from the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts. It remains on hold pending a decision in a different Philadelphia case.
That third case, which is still active and awaiting oral arguments before the state Supreme Court, concerns a Philadelphia law that bans ghost guns.
Read more: Crawford v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; Firearm Owners Against Crime v. City of Pittsburgh; Gun Owners of America, Inc., et al. v. City of Philadelphia.
Election
Since it went into effect in 2020, Pennsylvania’s no-excuse mail voting law has been a litigation target. Lawmakers failed to include guidelines regarding drop boxes, ballot “curing,” and other key details, creating fodder for lawsuits. False claims of election fraud by President Donald Trump have prompted additional scrutiny of the law.
The question of whether mail ballots should be rejected for dating errors has been especially sticky, with cases about the commonwealth’s dating requirement bouncing around various state and federal courts for years — and resulting in at least nine different rulings.
Last year, for instance, Commonwealth Court heard a case related to a Philadelphia special election, in which several dozen voters had their ballots rejected for missing dates. The ACLU, which sued on the plaintiffs’ behalf, made what has become a familiar argument in these cases — that the dating requirement has nothing to do with the ballot’s validity, and that using it to reject a vote is unconstitutional.
Commonwealth Court agreed and ordered the ballots to be counted. However, the state Supreme Court stayed the ruling.
Justices heard oral arguments in that case in September, but have yet to issue a ruling.
(A federal ruling ordering Pennsylvania election workers to count ballots with dating errors is in effect.)
The state Supreme Court also recently resolved another big mail voting question. In September, the justices ruled that election officials must notify voters if their mail ballots are going to be rejected, so they can take steps to ensure their vote is still counted.
Read more: Baxter v. Philadelphia Board of Elections, Center for Coalfield Justice et al. v. Washington County Board of Elections
Life without parole
The state Supreme Court will consider a case that challenges Pennsylvania’s mandatory life-without-parole sentences for people convicted of second-degree murder.
In Pennsylvania, individuals charged with felony murder can be held criminally responsible for a death that occurs during the commission of the crime, even if they did not intend to kill or were not the actual perpetrator. A conviction comes with a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole.
The defendant, Derek Lee, has been serving life in prison without parole since 2016, when he was first convicted. He filed an appeal in 2022, citing the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment.”
The Superior Court ruled that Lee was not entitled to relief in 2023, pointing to previous decisions in similar cases. One judge urged the state Supreme Court to revisit the issue, however.
Lee appealed the ruling to the state Supreme Court, which, in February of last year, agreed to hear his case. Oral arguments were held in October 2024. The court has yet to issue a ruling.
Read more: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Derek Lee
This story adapts and uses text from a 2024 version.