ABSTRACT
In the federal system used in the United States, each of the fifty states was created and exercises powers under a constitution. Like the federal Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the US Constitution, these state constitutions have their own provisions protecting individual liberties from infringement by the state governments. State constitutions guarantee individual liberties from infringement by the state government, generally through a declaration of rights included as a separate article in the state constitution. As the US Supreme Court has recognized, state courts are the final arbiters of their state constitutional law. Consequently, a state court's interpretation of state constitutional rights will not be reviewed by the US Supreme Court, even though the same right may be included in the federal Bill of Rights. In interpreting state constitutional rights, state courts may choose to interpret the state provisions more expansively than the US Supreme Court interprets the analogous provisions of the federal Bill of Rights.
