Case Citator › Heitman v. State

Heitman v. State

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Criticized by some courts
Court
Supreme Court of Texas
Citation
815 S.W.2d 681
Decided
Confirmed treatments
1
Flagged citations read
194 of 194
Citing cases (total)
1,035
Treatment dates
1998
Criticized by some courts
At least one reviewed court has criticized this case’s reasoning. No reviewed court has overruled it. Heitman v. State has been criticized in part; all 194 flagged citations have been read, and the confirmed treatment is listed below. Hulit v. State criticized as wrong Heitman's dictum that the federal Constitution supplies a floor and state constitutions a ceiling, clarifying that independently interpreted state protections may be lesser, greater, or the same.
More on how this was screened

Hulit expressly preserved Heitman's core rule that Texas courts interpret the state search-and-seizure provision independently. The other reviewed opinions followed Heitman, applied its briefing rule, or used nearby treatment language to report Heitman's own overruling or disapproval of older lockstep precedent.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

1,035 later cases cite Heitman v. State; 194 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on Heitman v. State?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Criticized

  • The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals criticized as wrong Heitman's federal-floor/state-ceiling metaphor, while reaffirming Heitman's core independent-interpretation rule.

    Hulit v. State · Texas Court of Criminal Appeals · filed

    As the Court of Appeals noted in this case, Heitman does not mean that the Texas Constitution cannot be interpreted to give less protection than the federal constitution. It only means that the Texas Constitution will be interpreted independently. ... Its protections may be lesser, greater, or the same as those of the federal constitution. In Heitman, we repeated the dictum of our sister court: “The federal constitution sets the floor for individual rights; state constitutions establish the ceiling.” ... With all respect to our Sister Court, we think its metaphor is wrong. The state constitution and the federal constitution are not parts of one legal building; each is its own structure. Their shapes may be different, as may their parts. Each may shield rights that the other does not. The ceiling of one may be lower than the floor of the other.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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