Assoc. Dean Amar Comments on Prop. 8 Precedent for NLJ
Associate Dean Vikram Amar commented for The National Law Journal regarding the ways in which the 1972 Supreme Court decision in Baker v. Nelson may impact litigation over California's Proposition 8.
Prop. 8 banned same-sex marriage in California, but was overturned by a federal judge, a decision that has been appealed to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and may ultimately reach the Supreme Court. The National Law Journal article examines the potential influence on the Ninth Circuit of Baker, in which the Supreme Court summarily dismissed an appeal by a same-sex couple who argued that their constitutional rights had been violated by the state of Minnesota's refusal to grant them a marriage license.
Associate Dean Amar explained that the summary dismissal does have precedential value but does not bind the Ninth Circuit to a specific course of action regarding Prop. 8. The summary dismissal should be understood by the lower court as "having decided as little as possible," he said, and "As long as the case the court is dealing with is arguably different from the one that was summarily dismissed, then there is running room for a lower court to do what it wants."
Vikram Amar, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Professor of Law with the UC Davis School of Law, is a national authority in the fields of constitutional law, civil procedure, criminal procedure, and remedies. His biweekly column for FindLaw.com, a leading provider of online legal information, centers on his expertise in constitutional law.