norml17 - Page 14

 will be obtained. Yet another: Laws prohibiting drug possession, passed
 when the drug was thought to have no therapeutic properties, should not be
 left lmmodified in light of new scientific knowledge.
 Sweeping generalities do not win court cases, however, regardless of
 their truth. Which brings us to:
 B. THE GUNWALL FACTORS.
 In _.I&te_y___C_y_g.N!, 5° the Supreme Court of Washington presented six
 "nonexclusive neutral criteria. ° .relevant in determining whether, in a given
 situation, the Washington State Constitution shoudd be considered as
 extending broader fights to its citizens than the United States Constitution. TM
 The purpose of elaborating the six factors are twofold: FirsL to suggest to
 counsel where briefing might be appropriately directed to invoke the
 wotections of the state, versus the federal, constitution, and second, to help
 "insure that if this court does use independent state constitutional gounds in a
 given situation, it will consider these criteria to the end that our decision wig
 be made for welI founded legal reasons and riot by merely substituting our
 notion of justice for that of duly elected legislative bodies or the United States
 Supreme Court. ''s2
 It should also be noted that the U°S. supreme court will not overturn a
 state supreme courfs holding interpreting state taw if the deNsiori was
 reached on "adequate and independent state grounds, ''53 and application of the
 _unwal! analysis makes that contention far more than an arbitrary asseNono
 Therefore, insistence on briefing and argmnent under the Gunwall criteria
 tends to protect the state supreme court from being overturned on appeal to
 the U.S. supreme comrt.
 In several cases since _unwa!! has been decided, the state supreme
 court has declined to consider issues of greater protection under the state
 constitution because the parties did not brief the issue under the six "Gunwall
 50 106 Wr_.2d 54, 720 P.2d 808 (1986)o
 5_ N at 58°
 52 i6 at 62_ 63.
 53 ]_j.clfig.an__. 2___g, 463 U_So 1032 (1983)
 14