EDITOR'S FOREWORD.

• Author: Bonventre, Vincent Martin

Hans Linde, affectionately and deservedly dubbed the "godfather" of state constitutional law, has exerted enormous influence through both his academic scholarship and his judicial opinions. In each forum, his contributions have been seminal--indeed, classics in the literature of judicial federalism. Those on the bench, in the practicing bar, and in academia who study, write and otherwise work in the field are in his considerable debt--as, of course, are those throughout this federal republic who have been the beneficiaries of independent state protection of rights and liberties. A forthcoming issue of Albany Law Review, dedicated to him, will pay tribute to his career and, especially, to his national leadership in promoting and shaping the standards and contours of modern state constitutional adjudication.

As a member of the Board of State Constitutional Commentary, as in other capacities, Hans Linde has urged a change in focus and emphasis in state constitutional scholarship. It is more than time, he has argued, to move beyond the now hackneyed axioms and celebrations of state court power to protect individual freedoms, as a matter of state constitutional law, when not safeguarded under federal law by a federal Supreme Court that has become increasingly stingy in its view of constitutional rights. Linde has called for research and study that leaves behind the tiresome truisms and self-interested (and often self-congratulatory) commentary on the rediscovered role of state courts and state constitutions. Instead, he has encouraged scholarship that examines state courts and state constitutions on their own merits, as fields of inquiry fully deserving of serious investigation, and not simply as contrasts with federal courts and law.

From its start, State Constitutional Commentary has sought to do just that. This issue, we believe, is particularly successful in that endeavor. The offerings here--from a look at the legal and sociological ramifications of the recent Diallo case (the prosecution, conducted in Albany, of four police officers for the shooting of an unarmed West-African immigrant in New York City), to quantitative studies of state court behavior, to an examination of recent civil liberties jurisprudence at two of the nation's leading high courts--are all intended to be enlightening, even fascinating. More than that, they are intended to meet Linde's exhortation away from the cliche-ridden literature in the field, and similarly, to be...