CCL President Robert S. Peck reminded judges attending the 2018 Pound Institute Forum for State Appellate Judges in Denver, Colorado, that state constitutions provide a double protection for individual rights that may go beyond the protections afforded by the U.S. Constitution and that state judges also have the authority to interpret the U.S. Constitution. He urged the judges, in appropriate cases, to use the incorporation doctrine to apply the Seventh Amendment's civil jury trial right to the states.

    The Pound forum focused on state constitutions this year. Professors Robert Williams of Rutgers Law School and Justin Long of Wayne State Law School presented papers on state constitutions. Peck was among the panelists commenting on the paper of Professor Williams. At lunch, the 140 judges from 36 states heard from Justice Goodwin Liu of the California Supreme Court, who reprised his Brennan Lecture of last year, delivered at New York University Law School. The lecture focused on the need to undertake an independent interpretation of state constitutional provisions and not to simply adopt the U.S. Supreme Court's views on similar federal rights.

     In Peck's remarks, judges heard about some of the reasons state constitutions, with their own unique text, support a stronger application. Still, he noted that sometimes federal provisions provide strong rights that should be applicable to the states. He gave the Seventh Amendment jury-trial right as an example of the rare Bill of Rights provision that had not been applied to states. He noted that little of the Bill of Rights had been made applicable until the 1960s. The Seventh Amendment's status was a function of jurisprudence that dates back to the late 19th century. Yet, Peck said, when the Second Amendment was made applicable to the states in 2010 in McDonald v. City of Chicago, the Supreme Court urged lower courts not to rely on outdated 19th century precedents. Using the criteria that the Supreme Court said justified incorporating the Second Amendment, Peck pointed out that the Seventh Amendment qualified as well, with an even stronger claim to incorporation.