Maine Constitution

The Law Court’s recent decision in Parker v. Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife is fascinating—it is a rare instance when the Court has been called upon to interpret and apply a new constitutional provision. The Maine Constitution has had relatively few amendments, but in 2021 Maine voters approved a “Right to Food Amendment.” Parker involved a challenge to Maine’s Sunday hunting law prohibition under the new amendment.

As is relevant here, the amendment provides that “[a]ll individuals have a natural, inherent and unalienable right to food, including the right to … grow, raise, harvest, produce and consume the food of their own choosing” for certain purposes, including nourishment. It then enumerates limitations on this right, conditioning the right on the requirement that the individual not commit “trespassing, theft, poaching or other abuses of private property rights, public lands or natural resources.”

The question in the case was whether the Maine law banning

Last week marked the close of a major legal dispute under Maine law regarding the applicability of retroactive laws to development projects already under construction.  The issue in the case was one of fundamental fairness: if a person obtains a valid permit under existing law and then in good faith expends significant sums building a project based on that permit, can the permit later be taken away based on newly enacted requirements? The case, NECEC Transmission LLC v. Bureau of Parks and Lands, provided a definitive answer—under the Maine Constitution, due process prevents such an outcome.

Full disclosure:  this author, together with colleagues at Pierce Atwood including John Aromando, Sara Murphy, and Jared des Rosiers, obtained this first-of-its-kind ruling on vested rights.

The retroactive law at issue was a citizen initiative adopted in 2021 that purported to bar completion of the New England Clean Energy Connect (or “NECEC”) project, a

One of the most interesting trends in the Law Court’s jurisprudence (at least in the mind of this blogger) is the continued renaissance of the Court’s primacy doctrine – an issue addressed before on this blog.  As explained in two prior blog posts (here and here), the primacy doctrine, generally speaking, directs state courts to resolve state constitutional issues prior to and independently of any federal constitutional issues.

The doctrine gained traction in the 1980s, but was largely neglected until two decisions in 2020; Justice Connors invoked it in her concurrence in State v Chan, and the Court applied it in State v. Fleming.  This revival does not appear to simply be a flash in the pan.

In a recent opinion authored by Justice Connors in State v. Reeves, the Court again applied the primacy approach to “first examine the defendant’s

Earlier this year, I asked a question on this blog:  does the Maine Constitution, now in its 200th year, still matter?  Shortly after, I offered a few reasons why it should still matter, including the Maine Constitution’s unique history, the nature of the state-federal relationship, and the doctrine of constitutional avoidance.  In the early 1980s, these considerations led the Law Court to adopt the “primacy approach” to constitutional interpretation, which, simply stated, means that courts give the state constitution independent force and meaning rather than simply interpret it in lockstep with the federal constitution.  In the following decades, the Law Court has not always consistently applied this approach.  In a notable pair of recent opinions, however, the Law Court expressly reaffirmed it, giving a clear answer to the question I raised: yes, the Maine Constitution does still matter.

Though it had lain largely dormant for many years, the primacy approach returned to the forefront in June with a notable concurrence by

On March 15, 2020, Maine turns 200 years old. For any Mainer, especially history buffs, the bicentennial is an occasion worth celebrating. For any legal beagle, the bicentennial is worth celebrating for an additional reason: Maine’s Constitution is also celebrating its 200th birthday.

The Maine Constitution was adopted at convention on October 29, 1819, approved by the people on December 6, 1819, and became effective on the same date Maine became a state. The Maine Constitution has proven to be one of the nation’s most durable state charters. By my research, only three operative state constitutions are older: those of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. But does the Maine Constitution still matter?

A recent Law Court decision highlights this question. In State of Maine v. Weddle, the Law Court was presented with an interesting search-and-seizure question relating to a Maine statute authorizing law enforcement officers to test the blood of all drivers involved in a fatal, or likely fatal,