Pick me! Lawyers tell SCOTUS why their gay-marriage cases are cert-worthy
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Some of the nation’s top lawyers are jostling for the attention of the U.S. Supreme Court as it considers whether to grant cert in a gay-marriage case.
The lawyers made out their arguments in a half-dozen briefs recently filed with the court, the New York Times reports. According to the newspaper, the lawyers sounded a little like-used car salesmen as they variously argued their case was an “excellent vehicle,” an “ideal vehicle” or an “appropriate vehicle” for the court.
Challenging a Virginia ban on gay marriages are Theodore Olson and David Boies, the lawyers who persuaded the Supreme Court in 2013 to leave intact a ruling allowing gay marriages in California because state officials didn’t appeal an adverse ruling. In an interview with the Times, Olson listed several reasons why the court should pick his latest case: It includes a class action, it involves the right to gay marriage and the recognition of gay marriages performed elsewhere, and it arises in the state where Mildred and Richard Loving established the right of interracial couples to marry. The case is Rainey v. Bostic.
Other challengers in the Virginia case are led by lawyer Paul Smith, who argued Lawrence v. Texas, the case that struck down a criminal law banning homosexual sodomy. Lawyers from Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union are also on the legal team. Smith pointed to the “the collective experience of counsel” in the Virginia case.
A Utah case, considered a leading candidate for cert, has a team of lawyers that includes former U.S. Solicitor General Neal Katyal; Mary Bonauto, a recent “genius grant” winner who is credited with the legal strategy advancing gay marriage; and lawyers with the National Center for Lesbian Rights. The case is Herbert v. Kitchen.
The lawyer in an Oklahoma case, Smith v. Bishop, is Stanford law professor Jeffrey Fisher. He argued his case should be chosen because it raised the core issue of the right to same-sex marriage, without the second issue of gay-marriage recognition.
Cert petitions have also been filed in cases challenging marriage bans in Indiana and Wisconsin.
