The resolution may not be televised
US Supreme Court pulls the plug on broadcast of Proposition 8 trial in Pasadena
By Jake Armstrong 01/14/2010
TVs in a courtroom at the Richard H. Chambers Courthouse, the Pasadena location for the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, on Monday were set to begin a live streaming of the likely two-week trial in a federal court in San Francisco.
But backers of the 2008 ballot initiative convinced the nation’s highest court to stay the planned transmission, saying the live broadcast to courtrooms around the nation and a delayed airing on the Internet — ordered by the judge hearing the case — would have made them targets for physical harassment and jeopardized their case. The decision made permanent a temporary stay the court issued Monday.
Same-sex marriage supporters lamented the decision in a case they believe will show the human impact of a majority taking away the rights of a minority. “It is an opportunity for people to think more deeply about the issue of marriage equality, rather than slogans,” said Jon Davidson, legal director for Lambda Legal.
Supporters of the proposition, who contend keeping marriage between a man and a woman strengthens society and is better for raising children, said the stay was necessary for them to defend their case.
“The highest court in the country took the position that we have held all along: This case is too high-profile, the stakes are too high, and the risks of harm to its participants too great to use it as a pilot project to experiment with televising federal trials, as Judge Walker and the homosexual activists have relentlessly insisted,” wrote Andy Pugno, attorney for Protect Marriage, the group that sponsored Proposition 8.
Davidson finds that odd. “It’s just interesting that the people who brought this to the electorate in California are saying it shouldn’t be visible,” he said.
If anyone has cause to worry about fallout from wider publicity, it should perhaps be the other side. The high visibility of the gay marriage issue during the Proposition 8 campaign was blamed for a rise in hate crimes directed at homosexuals in Los Angeles County that year, according to the county’s annual hate crime report.
In a 17-page unsigned opinion, the Supreme Court majority ruled the district and the 9th Circuit courts did not follow the proper procedures for changing their rules to allow the broadcasting.
“Courts enforce the requirement of procedural regularity on others, and must follow those requirements themselves,” the opinion read in part.
Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsberg dissented. In dissent, Breyer called the opinion granting the stay “unusual.
“It cites no precedent for doing so. It identifies no real harm, let alone “irreparable harm,” to justify its issuance of this stay. And the public interest weighs in favor of providing access to the courts,” he wrote.
For all the debate over the ills of allowing cameras into federal courtrooms, the Proposition 8 case is an exception, according to Davidson. Judge Walker would retain complete control over the taping, and could stop cameras from recording particular witnesses or lines of questioning, Davidson said. Additionally, the case is not a jury trial, which negates the possibility of a jury seeing proceedings a judge would have kept from their eyes, he said. “It’s a case that the traditional concerns that have been raised aren’t applicable to,” Davison said.
The trial, the first for a same-sex marriage case in federal court, is expected to be a landmark case the US Supreme Court will ultimately decide. It stems from Perry vs. Schwarzenegger, a lawsuit two same-sex couples brought against the governor and other top officials down to Los Angeles County Clerk Dean Logan.
US District Court Judge Vaughn Walker is being asked to determine whether the proposition’s ban on same-sex marriage violates homosexual couples’ constitutional rights to equal protection and due process.
Proceedings began Monday with witnesses and lawyers debating definitions of marriage, an expert explaining the history of the institution and emotional testimony from plaintiffs Paul Katami and Jeffrey Zarrillo about being denied the right to marry.
Any decision Walker’s makes is expected to be appealed to the 9th Circuit and then the US Supreme Court.
The California Supreme Court upheld the ban in May. The seven justices agreed the state would continue to recognize the 18,000 same-sex marriages that occurred in the five months gay marriage was legal. They also concurred that couples would still be afforded protections under the state’s domestic partnership law.
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