VIDEO: Ninth Circuit Court Of Appeals Hears Final Arguments In Proposition 8
Below is the full hearing from Thursday. The first clip covers the argument against releasing the trial tapes. The second clip covers the argument that Judge Vaughn Walker should have recused himself for being gay. Both clips are highly instructive as to the vitriolic lengths our enemies are willing to go in their campaign of oppression.
There's also a live stream from NOM further down today's postings, which may prove entertaining if things go our way. If you have access to a television, C-SPAN will be covering it live and online too. Things are set to begin at 1pm EST. Watch live ABC's live analysis here (they've apparently decided not to allow embedding of their live signal.)
UPDATE: I'm moving NOM's feed into this post as so far they are just going with the C-SPAN signal.
UPDATE II: Wow. The lawyer from Imperial County is TOTALLY being handed his head by these judges!
The Ninth Circuit Court will hear oral arguments in Perry Vs. Schwarzenegger beginning at 10am (California time.) NOM will be there with live video coverage and commentary. I'll post another live streaming video source, but you might want to pull this one out and save it in case we lose one of the other signals. ABC's non-embeddable video stream is here. (Save that one too.)
Moments ago California's Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage was OVERTURNED by Judge Vaughn Walker! This is just the beginning of a very long court battle, but for today, let's CELEBRATE!
I'll update this post shortly with the details of Walker's ruling.
UPDATE: Here is the complete ruling. Feel free to grab my embed for your own sites! Prop 8 Ruling (BIG thanks to JMG reader Victor in San Francisco for getting us the complete ruling before anybody else!)
UPDATE II: Legal eagles, does the first paragraph on the final page mean there is no stay on the ruling?
TODAY: Proposition 8 Day Of Decision Rallies Planned Nationwide
UPDATE: I'm moving this post back to the top of the blog because Rex's list of planned rallies is now at 45 cities and growing.
Veteran reporter Rex Wockner has compiled a growing list of rallies (and hopefully, celebrations) to take place around the nation today shortly after the release of the Prop 8 decision. A sampling:
LOS ANGELES: 6 p.m. | West Hollywood Park | 647 N. San Vicente SAN DIEGO:March:6 p.m. @ 6th & University | Rally: 7 p.m. @ LGBT Community Center | 3909 Centre St SAN FRANCISCO:5 p.m. | Castro & Market LONG BEACH:6 p.m. | Bixby Park | Junipero & Cherry @ Broadway SACRAMENTO: 6 p.m. | Party | K & 21st | In the unlikely event Judge Walker rules against teh gay, there will be a march to the Capitol SAN JOSE: 6 p.m. | Billy DeFrank Center | 983 the Alameda
New York City's event will take place in downtown Manhattan at the New York Supreme Court, 60 Centre Street, at 7pm. I hope to see all of you there! Hit Wockner's link for an event in your hometown. And below is a great advance video about today's rallies from JMG reader Sean Chapin.
This is it. The decision on Perry Vs. Schwarzenegger will be issued by Judge Vaughn Walker tomorrow (Wednesday).
The federal court announced today that it will release its decision in the American Foundation for Equal Right’s landmark case, Perry v. Schwarzenegger, on Wednesday. Text “EQUAL” to 69866 to get a text message with the official decision on your mobile phone the moment the court releases its decision, or sign-up for an email alert at equalrightsfoundation.org. Join AFER on its Web site to watch a live press conference with our plaintiffs and co-counsels Ted Olson and David Boies following the release of the decision. As we receive news about the details of the release, AFER will update our Facebook and Twitter profiles, along with our Web site.
While most on our side are confident the decision will go our way, the result will likely be appealed immediately.
UPDATE: Rex Wockner adds: "The Perry order will be e-filed between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. PDT tomorrow (between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. EDT - between 21h and 23h GMT/UTC). It will be available electronically to the public not only through PACER but also directly from the court's website free of charge soon after it is e-filed."
The American Foundation for Equal Rights will text you the moment Judge Vaughn Walker issues his decision on Perry Vs. Schwarzenegger. Just text the word "Equal" to 69866. You can also get an email alert by "liking" their Facebook page. And you can follow them on Twitter. Judge Walker's online calendar is completely blank for the month of July, perhaps indicating that the ruling could come any day now.
"Chuck Cooper is a heckuva lawyer. At stake in this case is the future of marriage in all 50 states, and he's right that this attempt to shut down the debate by constitutionalizing gay marriage will backfire. Americans have a right to vote for marriage. Ted Olson doesn't seem to understand the argument, and judging from today's exchanges neither does Judge Walker. I expect Judge Walker will overrule Prop 8. But millions of Americans do understand why marriage is the union of husband and wife and I believe the majority of the Supreme Court will as well." - NOM former president Maggie Gallagher, in a statement just posted to their Prop 8 site.
Karen Obamb provides this photo of attorney David Boies and Prop 8 plaintiffs Jeff Zarrillo and Paul Katami during a break in today's closing arguments. Things are apparently going very well. Ocamb notes: "Prop 8 proponent attorney Charles Cooper is up now and there’s considerable laughter in the ceremonial overflow room at some of his arguments." Follow on Twitter here.
10:00 AM– 11:30 AM: Plaintiffs (argued by Ted Olson and David Boies) 11:30 AM– 11:45 AM: City and County of San Francisco 11:45 AM– 12:00 PM: Governor, Attorney General and county defendants 12:00 PM– 1:00 PM: Lunch 1:00 PM– 3:15 PM: Proponents (argued by Charles Cooper) 3:15 PM– 3:45 PM: Plaintiffs’ rebuttal
Tomorrow morning District Court Judge Vaughn Walker hears final arguments in Perry Vs. Schwarzenegger, the long-running trial to overturn Proposition 8. Last week Walker may have tipped his hand when he issued a list of 39 questions he wanted answered by both sides.
“If the questions are any indication, the Walker opinion will be a blockbuster, at least in terms of its scope, depth and detail. Court decisions generally take an analysis far enough to resolve the particular issues presented, but no farther. But from the beginning of this case, Judge Walker has indicated a willingness to dig deeper, by forcing both sides – plaintiffs and defendants initially both resisted the demand for extensive evidence on the ground that it was unnecessary – to come up with evidentiary support for the kinds of quasi-philosophical arguments that make constitutional law so fascinating.”
Visit Karen Ocamb's excellent LGBT POV for a dissection of what we can expect tomorrow. Closing arguments will not be televised, but reporters and advocates from both sides will be live-blogging and tweeting throughout the proceedings. I'll be posting updates here all day long as they come in.
Following up on the New York Times story about the legal implications of the Dr. George Rekers scandal, Amanda Terkel at Think Progress has found four instances of Rekers' ties to the Perry Vs. Schwarzenegger trial to overturn Proposition 8. I don't usually excerpt another blogger's work so extensively, but this is a must-read.
1. Blankenhorn was the defendants’ star witness and was eviscerated on the stand by attorney David Boies, who was arguing against Prop. 8 for the American Foundation for Equal Rights. Blakenhorn has claimed that he is “not familiar” with Rekers’ work and didn’t “cite anyone named ‘Dr. Rekers’” in his “expert testimony submitted to the court.” However, Blankenhorn did reference Rekers’ work the bibliography of his “expert report” for the trial:
This Rekers declaration that Blankenhorn references has statements such as “The inherent structure of households with one or more homosexually behaving members deprives children of vitally needed positive contributions to child adjustment and to the child’s preparation for successful adulthood adjustment that are present in heterosexual homes.” (View it here.)
2. One of the witnesses arguing against Prop. 8 was Ryan Kendall, a gay man who was forced to undergo “reparative therapy” as a teenager to make him straight. He “was first sent to see a Christian therapist and then the National Association of Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH),” and the experiences left him contemplating suicide. Rekers was on the board of NARTH during the Prop. 8 trial and only recently stepped down after the “rent boy” scandal broke.
3. Rekers is a member of the American College of Pediatricians (ACP), which submitted an amicus brief to Chief Judge Walker in the Prop. 8 trial. ACP is a sham, right-wing group. When “the American Academy of Pediatrics passed its policy statement supporting second-parent adoptions by lesbian and gay parents in 2002, a fringe group of approximately 60 of the AAP’s more than 60,000 members” broke off and formed ACP.
4. The Prop. 8 defense had a witness named George Robinson who was going to testify about how being gay is a choice, although he was eventually withdrawn. He had also based some of his expert report on Rekers’ Prop. 22 declaration.
Excellent work by Amanda Terkels! Let's hope that Judge Vaughn Walker takes notice of this during the upcoming closing arguments.
The Courage Campaign has launched Equality On Trial, in which stars reenact the testimony given by the plaintiffs in California's Prop 8 trial. Below are reenactments from Marisa Tomei, Cheyenne Jackson, Michael Urie, Patricia Clarkson, Alan Cumming, and Ellen Greene. The Courage Campaign invites you to download trial scripts and upload your own reenactments to the Equality On Trial site.
Prop 8 Trial Conclusion May Be Delayed By Evidence Ruling
A California magistrate has ruled that the good guys in Perry vs. Schwarzenegger must submit all of their internal documents, the same condition imposed on Protect Marriage at the start of the trial. (Protect Marriage sent out a triumphant press release about this on Monday.) But the ACLU and others don't want to comply and this may delay a decision in the case.
Three groups that opposed Proposition 8 are challenging U.S. Magistrate Joseph Spero's order earlier this month requiring them to hand over all documents "that contain, refer or relate to arguments for or against Proposition 8," with the exception of private communications between their core leaders. At Tuesday's hearing, lawyers for those groups contended the disputed e-mails and memos were irrelevant to the case, and it was unfair to make the groups sift through tens of thousands of documents because they were not officially part of the litigation. "We are not the people who sought passage of this initiative," Bomse said. The wrangling mirrors pretrial disagreements between lawyers. A federal appeals court eventually ruled that exchanges among top campaign officials about strategy and messaging could be withheld, but information disseminated more broadly was fair game in the trial. Jesse Panuccio, a lawyer for Proposition 8 supporters, told Walker that it was only reasonable to require opponents of the ban to abide by the same disclosure requirements as supporters.
The ACLU says it may appeal the evidence ruling. At a recent forum in New York City, lead lawyers David Boies and Ted Olson had forecast a May decision in the case.
Prop 8 Attorneys Ted Olson & David Boies Speak At The New York Times
Last night Perry Vs. Schwarzenegger lead attorneys Ted Olson and David Boies spoke before about 150 journalists at the New York Times headquarters in Manhattan in an event called "Unlikely Allies." In attendance among the print journalists were uber-blogger Andy Towle, activists Corey Johnson and Brendan Fay, former Clinton advisor David Mixner, and former GLAAD director Neil Giuliano.
Olson and Boies spoke eloquently and optimistically about the potential outcome for the case and fielded sharp questions from the audience about the possible ramifications should they lose, the campaign to put cameras in the courtroom, and the pitiful defense put on by Protect Marriage. The event was moderated by NYT Supreme Court reporter Adam Liptak, who opened with an impassioned statement of his paper's support for LGBT rights. Paul Schindler at Gay City News:
It is no exaggeration to conclude that Boies and Olson are confident about their chances before Judge Walker, from whom they expect a ruling no later than June. The next step, they predicted, would be “expedited review” by the Ninth Circuit, perhaps in an “en banc” hearing that includes all of its appellate judges.
Victory at the appellate level –– which would legalize marriage for same-sex couples either in California or possibly in all nine states in the Ninth Circuit –– would speed Supreme Court review, since that victory would certainly be stayed, the attorneys said, until the high court ruled.
Boies and Olson were cagiest on how broad they think a potential district court victory might be. The court could find –– in somewhat analogous fashion to a 1996 Supreme Court case in which an anti-gay Colorado amendment was thrown out –– that voters in California had acted to deny gay and lesbian couples the equal protection of the law, in this case guaranteed by the state rather than the federal Constitution.
Or, Walker could rule that Boies and Olson succeeded in doing what they say they will fight to the end to demonstrate –– that the fundamental right to marry and the equal protection of the laws of the United States are violated when same-sex couples are denied access to civil marriage.
That, of course, would be the ultimate game-changer. Olson, perhaps the nation’s preeminent Supreme Court litigator, and Boies are clearly banking on their ability to win that argument on the merits at the high court, whatever the conventional wisdom about the current justices’ biases.
When asked afterward whether his confidence at the district court level is about winning the general argument or more narrowly restoring the right to marry in California, Boies said he was uncertain, acknowledging that Walker might well reach a decision fashioned to survive review by the Ninth Circuit and the Supreme Court. Even at this first stage, then, politics are not absent from the judicial equation.
Read Paul Schindler's complete article. Below is my short slideshow from the evening, followed by Towleroad's Corey Johnson's pre-event interview with Olson and Boies. I came away even more impressed with the pair, if that's possible. And it struck me that if someone had told me ten years ago that one day I'd be gushingly shaking the hand of the lead attorney in Bush Vs. Gore, I'd have told him that he was full of the crazy. Ted Olson left us with his prediction that Prop 8 would be before the Supreme Court by October 2011. It's almost unimaginable that in just 18 months, this decades-long battle could be over.
Despite what was speculated in Thursday's SF Chronicle, Karen Ocamb at LGBT POV reports that there were not be a broadcast of the closing arguments at Perry vs. Schwarzenegger. From a press release from the Court:
1. On January 15, 2010, Chief Judge Walker withdrew his previous request to include Perry et. al. v. Schwarzenegger et. al . in the Ninth Circuit’s pilot program permitting broadcasting of district court proceedings in limited circumstances. On the same date, Chief Judge Kozinski approved the request to withdraw the Perry case from the program. Broadcasting closing arguments would require Chief Judge Walker to request that these arguments be included in the Ninth Circuit’s pilot program and approval of that request by Chief Judge Kozinski. No such request has been made.
2. The presentation of evidence has not been completed; defendant-intervenors requested that their case remain open pending completion of discovery they are seeking from third parties. The proceedings concerning this discovery are on-going. Further information regarding the date for closing arguments will be made available on the court’s website when a date has been scheduled.
Prop 8 Trial Closing Arguments May Be Televised After All
The closing arguments in Perry vs. Schwarzenegger might just be televised after all.
Despite a rebuff from the U.S. Supreme Court, the Bay Area's federal judges are again proposing to allow cameras in their courtrooms, a plan that could lead to telecasting of closing arguments in a suit challenging California's ban on same-sex marriage. The U.S. District Court in San Francisco has posted a rule change on its Web site that would allow its judges to take part in a pilot program of airing selected nonjury civil trials. The public comment period began Feb. 4 and ends Thursday. The proposal is the same one Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker adopted in January after a week of overwhelmingly favorable public comment. But the Supreme Court intervened when Walker approved camera coverage of the trial over Proposition 8, the November 2008 initiative that outlawed same-sex marriage.
Protect Marriage says they won't speculate on opposing the broadcast until they know if it is really going to happen.
Today the San Francisco Chronicle outed Perry vs Schwarzenegger Judge Vaughn Walker. While Walker's gayness has long been known by insiders, this is the first acknowledgment by the press.
The biggest open secret in the landmark trial over same-sex marriage being heard in San Francisco is that the federal judge who will decide the case, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, is himself gay. Many gay politicians in San Francisco and lawyers who have had dealings with Walker say the 65-year-old jurist, appointed to the bench by President George H.W. Bush in 1989, has never taken pains to disguise - or advertise - his orientation.
They also don't believe it will influence how he rules on the case he's now hearing - whether Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure approved by state voters to ban same-sex marriage, unconstitutionally discriminates against gays and lesbians. "There is nothing about Walker as a judge to indicate that his sexual orientation, other than being an interesting factor, will in any way bias his view," said Kate Kendell, head of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which is supporting the lawsuit to overturn Prop. 8. As evidence, she cites the judge's conservative - albeit libertarian - reputation, and says, "There wasn't anyone who thought (overturning Prop. 8) was a cakewalk given his sexual orientation."
The lead counsel for Protect Marriage says that his side does not intend to make an issue of Walker's sexuality should he rule against them. Riiiight. Walker hasn't necessarily been considered a friend of the gays. In 1987 he defended the U.S. Olympic Committee in its copyright lawsuit against Tom Waddell, the creator of the Gay Olympics who was dying of AIDS. Even after winning the case, Walker had a lien placed against Waddell's home in order to recoup the USOC's legal costs. Only after Waddell died was the lien lifted. The Gay Olympics case delayed Ronald Reagan's nomination of Walker to the federal bench.
UPDATE: The far-right National Review is already calling for Walker to step down. The linked editorial cites Walker's attempt to have the trial televised, then closes with this:
Take Walker’s failure to decide the case, one way or the other (as other courts have done in similar cases), as a matter of law and his concocting of supposed factual issues to be decided at trial. Take the incredibly intrusive discovery, grossly underprotective of First Amendment associational rights, that Walker authorized into the internal communications of the Prop 8 sponsors—a ruling overturned, in part, by an extraordinary writ of mandamus issued by a Ninth Circuit panel consisting entirely of Clinton appointees. Take Walker’s insane and unworkable inquiry into the subjective motivations of the more than seven million Californians who voted in support of Prop 8. Take Walker’s permitting a parade of anti-Prop 8 witnesses at trial who gave lengthy testimony that had no conceivable bearing on any factual or legal issues in dispute but who provided useful theater for the anti-Prop 8 cause. And so on. Walker’s entire course of conduct has only one sensible explanation: that Walker is hellbent to use the case to advance the cause of same-sex marriage. Given his manifest inability to be impartial, Walker should have recused himself from the beginning, and he remains obligated to do so now.
