Litigation

Supreme Court Blocks Video in Prop. 8 Trial

By Peter Hardin

The U.S. Supreme Court, on a 5-4 vote, pulled the plug indefinitely Wednesday on the idea of broadcasting the trial  of a lawsuit challenging California’s gay marriage ban.

According to SCOTUSblog, the high court issued a 17-page opinion and criticized lower courts for attempting ?to change its rules at the eleventh hour.”

The high court stay overrules U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker (right), who is presiding over the trial, which opened this week in San Francisco. Walker is part of of a schism among top judges over cameras in federal courtrooms.

Judge Walker has a reputation for an unconventional approach, according to a profile in the Wall Street Journal. He was nominated by President Reagan in 1987, for example, and the attorney general then was Edwin Meese III. More recently, Meese penned a commentary in the New York Times accusing Judge Walker of stacking the deck against supporters of traditional marriage with his rulings.

More recently the judge tried to defy a trend away from cameras in federal courtrooms, in cooperation with Judge Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. After Judge Kozinski announced a pilot program for western-state courts to record civil trials heard by judges, Judge Walker approved of video coverage of the gay marriage trial. (See earlier Gavel Grab posts.) He said video could be posted to YouTube on a delayed basis.

The U.S. Supreme Court stepped in, however, and blocked that coverage until Wednesday afternoon. According to an article by by the Associated Press, the Judicial Conference of the United States–led by Chief Justice John Roberts–made clear its position to Judge Kozinski Friday, saying it opposes federal civil or criminal trials “to be broadcast, televised, recorded or photographed for the purpose of public dissemination.”

Judge Kozinski did not pull his punches in reply, saying the conference does not have ultimate power over the Ninth Circuit and other federal appeals courts. He wrote, “Like it or not, we are well into the Twenty-First Century, and it is up to those of us who lead the federal judiciary to adopt policies that are consistent with the spirit of the times and the advantages afforded us by new technology.”

Lawyers for sponsors of Proposition 8, which led to the gay marriage ban after voters backed it, have expressed concern that video coverage could harm a fair trial in the San Francisco courtroom. On Monday, the AP reported, Judge Walker told lawyers in the case his desire was to post video of the proceedings only on the court’s Web site–after a delay of several hours.

Full post as published by The Gavel on January 13, 2010 (boomark / email).