Judge Walker Explains Use Of Prop 8 Trial Videos; Pro-Marriage Equality Lawyers File Motion For Release Of All Tapes

In the first several cameras in the courtroom lectures, I used a re-enactment of cross-examination from Perry. When given the disk containing the Perry videos as part of my judicial papers, I decided that in the presentation on February 18 at the University of Arizona it would be permissible and appropriate to use the actual cross-examination excerpt from Perry, instead of the re-enactment. I also used that same excerpt in a talk to a meeting of the Federal Bar Association in Riverside, California on March 8 and in a class I am teaching at the University of California Berkeley School of Law. I am scheduled to give a similar talk at Gonzaga University Law School next week. The Perry excerpt is three minutes in length.

I should also note that the video of the entire Perry trial was made available to the parties in that case and portions were used in the closing arguments in the district court and made part of the record before the case went to appeal. If the court believes that my possession of the videos as part of my judicial papers is inappropriate, I shall, of course, abide by that or any other directive the court makes.

The Perry case involved a public trial. As Chief Justice Berger observed some years ago, "People in an open society do not demand infallibilty in their instructions, but it is difficult for them to accept what they are prohibited from observing.