Justices Temporarily Halt Streaming of Prop 8 Trial on YouTube

By Marcia Coyle

The Supreme Court today ordered the federal judge hearing the Proposition 8 trial to confine the real time streaming of the trial to rooms within the confines of the courthouse.

The temporary stay of Judge Vaughn Walker's plan to record the trial and post it on YouTube is in effect until Wednesday at 4 p.m. (EST). The Court said this would permit further consideration by the justices of what has become a very controversial issue. Justice Stephen Breyer dissented saying that the stay prohibits the transmission of the trial proceedings to other federal courthouses. "In my view, the Court's standard for granting a stay is not met. In particular, the papers filed, in my view, do not show a likelihood of 'irreparable harm.'" Breyer added that he was pleased that the stay is time limited because he agreed that further consideration is warranted.

For more on the camera issue see our post from Sunday.

Comments

[Tom]

Shame on Mr. Heimoff for his slur on the religion of any member of the Supreme Court -- and on Catholics and the Pope in particular. Mr. Heimoff has a right to his own religious (or anti-religious) views -- but so do members of the Court. Article VI of the Constitution manifestly prohibits the application of any religious test to a public official, as Mr. Heimoff apparently would advocate doing. Further, I would guess that religion manifestly had nothing to do with the Court's ruling (which this Catholic would question for purely prudential reasons).

[Veronica]

The founding fathers wrote the constitution with the idea that majority will prevailed only in public for political affairs and that it was LIMITED BY INALIENABLE, INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS. Therefore, I do not believe that the majority should vote a man’s LIFE, PROPERTY, OR FREEDOM AWAY FROM HIM. And therefore I do not believe that if the majority votes on an issue, it does not make it RIGHT.

[Steve Heimoff]

The catholics on the SCOTUS win another victory for the pope.