9th Circuit: Videos of Marriage Amendment Trial Will Remain Sealed
Posted By cmbuuck on March 4, 2012
by Karla DialA three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals handed marriage advocates a solid victory Thursday, declaring that videotapes of a trial over California’s same-sex marriage decision will remain sealed.
The hearings concern Prop. 8, the voter-initiated law to keep the definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman, passed after the state Supreme Court unilaterally declared same-sex marriage legal in California in 2008.
During the trial, which took place in 2010, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker assured marriage advocates “on several occasions” he was only taping the proceedings for his own use in chambers to review evidence, and that the tapes would be “sealed” in the court record and not made public.