Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Court throws out motion to disqualify Judge Walker (and vacate the Prop8 trial)

From Prop8 trial tracker, some quotes from the opinion:
In fact, the Court observes that Judge Walker, like all judges, had a duty to preserve the integrity of the judiciary. Among other things, this means that if, in an overabundance of caution, he were to have disclosed intimate, but irrelevant, details about his personal life that were not reasonably related to the question of disqualification, he could have set a pernicious precedent. Such a precedent would be detrimental to the integrity of the judiciary, because it would promote, incorrectly, disclosure by judges of highly personal information (e.g., information about a judge’s history of being sexually abused as a child), however irrelevant or time-consuming.
And, in response to the Prop8 supporters' contention that because Judge Walker is gay AND in a relationship, he MUST want to marry, this:
Finally, the presumption that “all people in same-sex relationships think alike” is an unreasonable presumption, and one which has no place in legal reasoning. The presumption that Judge Walker, by virtue of being in a same-sex relationship, had a desire to be married that rendered him incapable of making an impartial decision, is as warrantless as the presumption that a female judge is incapable of being impartial in a case in which women seek legal relief. On the contrary: it is reasonable to presume that a female judge or a judge in a same-sex relationship is capable of rising above any personal predisposition and deciding such a case on the merits. The Motion fails to cite any evidence that Judge Walker would be incapable of being impartial, but to presume that Judge Walker was incapable of being impartial, without concrete evidence to support that presumption, is inconsistent with what is required under a reasonableness standard.
I"m not a lawyer, but I think that's a slap...

1 comment:

James said...

Very well said. Have you noticed that the anti - hate rulings have all been soundly reasoned and stated whereas the pro H8 statemens all sound as if no one has been to law school?