The Prop 8 Defendant Intervenors lost their bid to keep videotaped recordings of the trial under wraps. Plaintiff's motion to release the recordings was granted. District Court Chief Judge James Ware of California decreed (PDF of ruling):
The Court GRANTS Plaintiffs’ Motion to Unseal. Subject to the Stay Order issued below,the Clerk of Court is directed to place the digital recording of the trial into the public record.When the digital recording is placed in the public record, the confidentiality obligations of the Protective Order, as applied to the digital recording of the trial, are LIFTED.The Clerk of Court is directed to immediately return to Judge Walker the copy of the digitalrecording that was given to him as part of his judicial papers, which he subsequently lodged with theCourt during the pendency of this Motion.
Which doesn't mean they'll immediately be seen in theater near you:
14The Court STAYS the execution of this Order until
September 30, 2011
Unless a furtherstay is granted by the Court on timely motion or by a higher court, on September 30, 2011, the Clerk is ordered to execute this Order.
The defenders of Prop 8 know they have no case. They know their own witness broke down on the stand and affirmed Prop 8 challenger's arguments.
They'll appeal this decision. They'll ask for a longer stay. They'll try to take it to the Supreme Court of the United States. But they're losing. And their pathetic little dog and pony show, where their own lawyer declared he didn't need any evidence to support their case, is surely soon to be released.
But they can't escape this conclusion from Ware's rulling:
"Foremost among the aspects of the federal judicial system that foster public confidence in the fairness and integrity of the process are public access to trials and public access to the record of judicial proceedings. Consequently, once an item is placed in the record of judicial proceedings, there must be compelling reasons for keeping that item secret."
Defendant intervenors have been claiming the trial judge was biased. If they honestly believe this, it seems odd they would wish to keep evidence of this bias out of the public's eyes, by seeking to seal the tapes. The public should have the opportunity to see for themselves if the trial was biased. And it appears they probably will.
We'll soon see with our own eyes how plaintiffs Kristin Perry, Sandra Steir, Paul Katami and Jeffrey Zarrillo explained to the Court why they deserve to be treated equally.
And how the defendant intervenors fail to explain why they should not.
This is a good day.
Worth an update, why this is good news, David Bois explained what happened in the courtroom shortly after on Face The Nation:
“It’s easy to sit around and debate and throw around opinions [that] appeal to people’s fear and prejudice, cite studies that either don’t exist or don’t say what you say they do. In a court of law you’ve got to come in and you’ve got to support those opinions. You’ve got to stand up under oath and cross-examination. And what we saw at trial is that it’s very easy for the people who want to deprive gay and lesbian citizens the right to vote, to make all sorts of statements and campaign literature or in debates where they can’t be cross-examined. …
There weren’t any empirical studies. That’s just made up. That’s junk science. And it’s easy to say that on television. But a witness stand is a lonely place to lie. And when you come into court, you can’t do that. And that’s what we proved. We put fear and prejudice on trial, and fear and prejudice lost.”