Moments ago the US Supreme Court put California's Proposition 8 out of its misery. They ruled that the defendant-intervenors in the case - the group that put Prop 8 on the ballot way back in 2008 - did not have standing to appeal.
The Ninth Circuit was without jurisdiction to consider the appeal. The judgment of the Ninth Circuit is vacated, and the case is remanded with instructions to dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.
This means that Judge Vaughn Walker's 2010 decision broadly declaring Prop 8 unconstitutional becomes reinstated, while the more narrow Ninth Circuit court decision which also found Prop 8 lacking constitutionally is nullified.
In theory and in practice this should mean that same-sex marriages will once again be able to be performed in The Golden State in the not-to-distant future (I have heard 25 days as well as 90 days). There are possible challenges to the scope of Walker's ruling - i.e., whether it only applies in the California counties in which the lawsuit's plaintiffs reside or is in fact applicable to the entire state....
If she
Is morally, ethic'lly
Spiritually, physically
Positively, absolutely
Undeniably and reliably Dead?
How it all plays out will undoubtedly be grist for bloggers for months to come. But most scholars don't view these questions of jurisdiction as significant. I believe it is safe to say that the house really did land on Proposition 8 today.
As Coroner I must aver, I thoroughly examined her.
And she's not only merely dead, she's really most sincerely dead!
It was nine years ago that the question of whether it was constitutional to deny same-sex couples the right to marry came before the California courts in In Re Marriage Cases, spurred by then San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's directive to conduct same-sex marriages within the city limits. It was more than five years ago that the California Supreme Court first found that marriage equality was a right guaranteed by the California Constitution. Six months after the California Supreme Court's decision the people, by a vote of 52% - 48%, overruled the CSC with a constitutional amendment: Proposition 8. The California Supreme Court ultimately ruled that Proposition 8 was a valid amendment, setting the stage for Perry v Schwarzenegger, the case before Judge Walker.
Walker's decision was appealed to the Ninth Circuit, which, after hearing oral arguments, sent the question of the defendant-intervenors' standing to appeal to the California Supreme Court in early 2011. Some ten months later the California Supreme Court ruled that with respect to California law, the defendant-intervenors had standing, and back to the Ninth Circuit the case went. In February, 2012, the Ninth Circuit released its opinion finding that Prop 8 was unconstitutional, relying not so much on Walker's reasoning but on Romer v Evans.
En banc review by the Ninth Circuit was requested but denied; appeal to the Supreme Court followed in mid 2012. In December of 2012 the Supreme Court, surprising many, agreed to hear the case. In March of 2012, oral arguments took place in which Justice Kennedy famously mused whether the court should have been hearing this case at all, or whether it had been "improperly granted."
Now it's over. But the fight for marriage equality will continue because the question of constitutionality has been settled only in California (and only at the Federal District Court level in some sense), not by an Appellate Court decision nor throughout the entire United States. The Supreme Court will ultimately have to rule on the issue rather than finesse its way around it. That could happen in two to three years as marriage equality cases from Nevada (Sevcik v Sandoval), Hawaii (Jackson v Abercrombie) and Michigan (DeBoer v Snyder) wind their way through the federal judicial system to SCOTUS.
And we can do this all over again. But for the moment
The plaintiffs, Kristin Perry, Sandra Stier, Paul Katami and Jeffrey Zarillo
arrive at The Supreme Court 6-26-13
9:18 AM PT: From ScotusBlog. Big news!:
We are getting reports that Governor Brown is ordering all county clerks to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Here's a quote from the Governor: “After years of struggle, the U.S. Supreme Court today has made same-sex marriage a reality in California. In light of the decision, I have directed the California Department of Public Health to advise the state’s counties that they must begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in California as soon as the Ninth Circuit confirms the stay is lifted.”