The Law of American State Constitutions

The second edition of The Law of American State Constitutions provides complete coverage of the legal doctrines surrounding, applying to, and arising from American state constitutions and their judicial interpretation. Drawing on examples from specific states, Professors Williams and Friedman analyze the nature and function of state constitutions in contrast to the federal Constitution, including rights, separation of powers, issues of interpretation, and the processes for amendment and revision. In this edition, Williams and Friedman focus on recent developments, including the state constitutional dimensions of same-sex marriage and the reaction of state courts to U.S. Supreme Court decision making. This edition of The Law of American State Constitutions remains an important analytical tool that explains the unique character and the range of interpretive approaches to these constitutions. It covers the structure of state governments under state constitutions as well as the distribution of powers among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. Like the first edition, this edition presents a complete picture of state constitutional law and the attributes and features that make this body of law so distinctive.

Robert F. Williams is Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus at Rutgers Laws School and served as Associate Director of the Center for State Constitutional Studies at Rutgers. He holds a B.A. from Florida State, a J.D. from the University of Florida, and LL.M. degrees from New York University and Columbia. He served as a legislative assistant during the 1967 Special Constitutional Revision session of the Florida Legislature and represented clients before the 1978 Special Constitutional Revision Commission. Williams taught state constitutional law at Rutgers from 1980 through 2020 and has participated in a wide range of litigation on state constitutional issues. Lawrence Friedman is Professor of Law at New England Law the New Hampshire Supreme Court, and is currently the series editor of the Oxford Commentaries on the State Constitutions of the United States.