From The Bay Area Reporter: http://ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=67643
by Matthew S. Bajko
April 18, 2012
The federal district judge who found California's ban against same-sex marriage unconstitutional questioned if the U.S. Supreme Court would take up the case during a talk in San Francisco Thursday afternoon.
Vaughn Walker, the now-retired chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, told a Commonwealth Club audience April 19 that there is reason to believe the case will end in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, where it is currently on appeal.
"There is some question if the Prop 8 case will go to the United States Supreme Court," said Walker, who oversaw the Prop 8 trial and issued his ruling striking down the antigay ballot measure in 2010. "Because of the narrow grounds the 9th Circuit ruled on, they could turn down that case."
When Walker issued his decision in what is known as Perry v. Brown, he not only ruled that voters who enacted the measure in 2008 were in violation of the due process and equal protection clauses in the U.S. Constitution, he also found that gays and lesbians had a constitutionally guaranteed right to marry.
But a three-judge panel for the 9th Circuit did not reach the same far-sweeping conclusion in its 2-1 decision released in February. While they agreed with Walker that the passage of Prop 8 violated the equal protection clause, the appellate majority said the question of same-sex marriage being a protected right would have to wait for another case, and likely another court, to decide.
Continue reading at: http://ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=67643
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment