Abstract
Whether out of homage to superior wisdom, judicial economy, desire for uniformity, or simple agreement, many state courts look to decisions of the United States Supreme Court for guidance on state constitutional issues or other issues where an analogy from federal law might be helpful. Many state supreme courts, such as the Alaska Supreme Court expressly reserve the power to interpret protections under their state constitutions more broadly than similar protections under the federal Constitution. At times, those courts that faithfully adhere to this republican spirit find sharp division within their ranks.
A state court may adopt a United States Supreme Court rule, constitutional or otherwise, without independent analysis or justification. A troublesome issue arises, however, should the Supreme Court reconsider that role: Is the state court's adoption of federal precedent automatically called into question? If the state court advanced no independent support for the adopted federal rule, it seems logical that change in the underlying federal rule would require reconsideration, if not abandonment of the derivative state rule. Indeed, this situation often arises when a court fails to articulate sufficiently the rationale or basis for its decision?
This type of ambiguity exists in Alaska law in the area of the retroactivity of new legal rules. Retroactivity issues generally arise when a court either overrules one of its prior decisions or announces a rule governing a particular area of law which has not been previously addressed. In such situations, the issue is whether the new rule will be applied to other cases either pending at the time of the announcement of the new rule, or filed after the announcement of the new rule but based on events occurring prior to its announcement.