California Minute

by Ron Prentice,
Chief Executive Officer

U.S. Federal District Court Chief Judge James Ware (California’s Northern District) yesterday denied the Prop 8 Legal Defense team’s motion to vacate former judge Vaughn Walker’s overturning of Proposition 8. This was expected.

The motion was filed due to former judge Walker’s admission – seven months after issuing his decision against the constitutionality of traditional marriage – that he has been in a committed same-sex relationship for ten years. The Prop 8 Legal Defense team argued that Walker, by virtue of his own life circumstances, stood to personally gain by favoring same-sex marriage. In other words, Walker was potentially in the same position as the plaintiffs, two homosexual couples in committed relationships who sought to become legally married in California.

In Chief Judge Ware’s denial of the motion, he stated that a judge is presumed to be impartial. However, if we are to expect judges to hold themselves to high ethical standards, shouldn’t we then expect them to avoid even the potential appearance of bias or prejudice? Former judge Walker was minimally obligated to provide full disclosure of his ten-year-long same-sex relationship, or to recuse himself without explanation if he was not yet prepared to make his personal life public.

So I ask you: if the circumstances of this proceeding do not question a judge’s impartiality, what circumstances would? In oral arguments, plaintiffs’ attorneys could not imagine one! Perhaps only if the judge is himself a plaintiff in a case on which he is asked to rule?

Lead litigator Chuck Cooper and attorneys from the Cooper & Kirk law firm and the Alliance Defend Fund are neither surprised nor deterred by Ware’s ruling, and now will appeal his decision to the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals. By the time this case reaches the U.S. Supreme Court, its record of motions, rulings, orders and disregard for orders and legal precedent should make for exciting reading for the Justices of the highest court!   

P.S. Reminder that a Truth Project training takes place in Mount Shasta this Saturday.  Click here for more information.