amituvh01: Court denies motion to vacate Judge Walker's Prop 8 ruling

In a case that could affect the general public based on the circumstances or characteristics of various members of that public, the fact that a federal judge happens to share the same circumstances or characteristic and will only be affected in a similar manner because the judge is a member of the public, is not a basis for disqualifying the judge.

So ruled the Hon. James Ware, Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California this afternoon, denying the motion filed by Prop 8 supporters which sought to vacate Judge Walker's ruling invalidating Prop 8 on account of Judge Walker's being gay.

The motion was argued before Judge Ware yesterday, and folks were pretty confident that we'd see a ruling like this:

In applying this conclusion to the present case, the Court finds that Judge Walker was not required to recuse himself ... on the ground that he was engaged in a long-term same-sex relationship and, thus, could reap speculative benefit from an injunction halting enforcement of Proposition 8 in California. In particular, in a case involving laws restricting the right of various members of the public to marry, any personal interest that a judge gleans as a member of the public who might marry is too attenuated to warrant recusal. Requiring recusal because a court issued an injunction that could provide some speculative future benefit to the presiding judge solely on the basis of the fact that the judge belongs to the class against whom the unconstitutional law was directed would lead to a [] standard that required recusal of minority judges in most, if not all, civil rights cases. Congress could not have intended such an unworkable recusal statute.

Moreover, explained Judge Ware, you can't just say "gay judges have more to gain from these rulings than straight ones; therefore, they're biased!"

[I]t is inconsistent with the general principles of constitutional adjudication to presume that a member of a minority group reaps a greater benefit from application of the substantive protections of our Constitution than would a member of the majority. The fact that this is a case challenging a law on equal protection and due process grounds being prosecuted by members of a minority group does not mean that members of the minority group have a greater interest in equal protection and due process than the rest of society. In our society, a variety of citizens of different backgrounds coexist because we have constitutionally bound ourselves to protect the fundamental rights of one another from being violated by unlawful treatment. Thus, we all have an equal stake in a case that challenges the constitutionality of a restriction on a fundamental right. One of the duties placed on the shoulders of federal judges is the obligation to review the law to determine when unequal treatment violates our Constitution and when it does not. To the extent that a law is adjudged violative, enjoining enforcement of that law is a public good that benefits all in our society equally. Although this case was filed by same-sex couples seeking to end a California constitutional restriction on their right to marry, all Californians have an equal interest in the outcome of the case. The single characteristic that Judge Walker shares with the Plaintiffs, albeit one that might not have been shared with the majority of Californians, gave him no greater interest in a proper decision on the merits than would exist for any other judge or citizen.

Second, disqualifying Judge Walker based on an inference that he intended to take advantage of a future legal benefit made available by constitutional protections would result in an unworkable standard for disqualification. Under such a standard, disqualification would be based on assumptions about the amorphous personal feelings of judges in regards to such intimate and shifting matters as future desire to undergo an abortion, to send a child to a particular university or to engage in family planning. So too here, a test inquiring into the presiding judge?s desire to enter into the institution of marriage with a member of the same sex, now or in the future, would require reliance upon similarly elusive factors. Given [the law's] requirement that non-pecuniary interests must be ?substantially affected? to require recusal, recusal could turn on whether a judge ?fervently? intended to marry a same-sex partner versus merely ?lukewarmly? intended to marry, determination that could only be reached through undependable and invasive self-reports To hold otherwise, and require recusal merely based on the fact that the presiding judge is engaged in a long-term same-sex relationship, is to place an inordinate burden on minority judges. Such a standard would, in essence, infer subjective future intent on the basis of a judge?s membership in a particular class. In this case, it is notable that the presiding judge has publicly disclosed that he is in a ?10-year relationship with a physician.? However, there has been no similar disclosure as to the judge?s intent to marry, whether now or in the future. The Court declines to adopt the principle that absence of disclosure should warrant the mandatory inference that the presiding judge ?fervently? intends to marry and, thus, holds an interest in this case that is substantially affected by the outcome.

Instead, Judge Ware explains, the integrity of the Courts is best protected by not having invasive inquiries like this: "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," which leads to the final nail in the motion's coffin:

[T]he 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.

As to Judge Walker's ruling on the merits, that appeal remains on hold while the California Supreme Court determines whether anyone has standing to appeal the ruling.