Re-enactments or transcripts of the Proposition 8 gay marriage case?
January 13, 2010 4:23 PM Subscribe
Perry v. Schwarzenegger (Challenge to Proposition 8): Do you know if anyone is doing re-enactments of the testimony? Are such re-enactments legal in this kind of case? Are court transcripts available online somewhere?
In light of the Supreme Court decision not to allow broadcast of the gay marriage case in San Francisco, I would like to find re-enactments of the day-to-day testimony in the case. If this isn't being done, I would like to maybe work on setting up youtube re-enactments including clear name/photo identification of people who are testifying. Is this legal?
I have found sites where the testimony is being summarized and/or quoted in part--is that the best that is available?
In light of the Supreme Court decision not to allow broadcast of the gay marriage case in San Francisco, I would like to find re-enactments of the day-to-day testimony in the case. If this isn't being done, I would like to maybe work on setting up youtube re-enactments including clear name/photo identification of people who are testifying. Is this legal?
I have found sites where the testimony is being summarized and/or quoted in part--is that the best that is available?
Court proceedings are public. You can read/reenact or post anything that occurs in open court.
posted by mmf at 4:40 PM on January 13, 2010
posted by mmf at 4:40 PM on January 13, 2010
Court proceedings are public.
Not true. Many court proceedings are made secret, for example, those pertaining to state secrets/security matters.
That said, I don't think this case would be one whose records will be sealed.
posted by dfriedman at 4:44 PM on January 13, 2010
Not true. Many court proceedings are made secret, for example, those pertaining to state secrets/security matters.
That said, I don't think this case would be one whose records will be sealed.
posted by dfriedman at 4:44 PM on January 13, 2010
Response by poster: Thank for the link, dfriedman. I had looked it over but did not see anything about transcripts. They have a link to something called the PACER system, with free registration, which apparently includes transcripts, but 90 days after they are turned in.
So far, the most thorough coverage I can find is here, and it is a lot of information, but it looks to be partially summarized testimony, and I don't know how accurate it would be given it is from live blogging.
posted by troybob at 4:58 PM on January 13, 2010 [1 favorite]
So far, the most thorough coverage I can find is here, and it is a lot of information, but it looks to be partially summarized testimony, and I don't know how accurate it would be given it is from live blogging.
posted by troybob at 4:58 PM on January 13, 2010 [1 favorite]
dfriedman is right that certain court proceedings are closed to the public (juvenile court would be an example) but these proceedings are definitely open to the public and anyone can report about it.
I see that Firedoglake is liveblogging, I haven't found a better source yet.
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/23603
posted by mmf at 5:06 PM on January 13, 2010
I see that Firedoglake is liveblogging, I haven't found a better source yet.
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/23603
posted by mmf at 5:06 PM on January 13, 2010
I have no affiliation with this case, and won't be offering you legal advice. However I have litigated in Federal Court before, and can give you some general information on why this may be more difficult than you anticipate.
First, both mmf and dfriedman are correct; it is the default position for court proceedings to be public, but it is possible to close the courtroom and/or seal various parts of the record for many reasons. Beyond state secrets and security, this is also sometimes done to protect confidential private information and documents.
This would not seem to apply here since it is unlikely, given the issues, that confidential info such as business records, medical records, etc, is at issue. My understanding of the Supreme Court order on broadcasting the hearings is that it is strictly procedural (i.e., proper procedures were not followed before altering the previous rule banning such broadcasts), rather than a substantive ruling on the confidentiality of the hearings/trial. As such I would expect the record to be public. In any case, if portions are not public, a public redacted version should still be issued.
That said, hearing and trial transcripts are very long, and they are recorded and corrected by court reporters. This takes a great deal of effort and is not fast or free. Unless someone pays for rush processing, I would not expect full transcripts to be available for a couple weeks at least, and even then you will likely have to pay for them. There is a possibility, all things considered, that some news organization will buy them and post them entirely online, but in my experience, the posting of orders and transcripts in famous cases is haphazard and one-off. At any rate, you might want to watch for this, but the short story is that it's likely no one has access to a full transcript to perform a reenactment yet.
About the reenactment: I don't know what you have in mind so I can't comment on the legality of it, obviously, but I'm not sure what you would anticipate to be the problem with reading aloud a publicly-available document to an audience.
posted by rkent at 5:07 PM on January 13, 2010
First, both mmf and dfriedman are correct; it is the default position for court proceedings to be public, but it is possible to close the courtroom and/or seal various parts of the record for many reasons. Beyond state secrets and security, this is also sometimes done to protect confidential private information and documents.
This would not seem to apply here since it is unlikely, given the issues, that confidential info such as business records, medical records, etc, is at issue. My understanding of the Supreme Court order on broadcasting the hearings is that it is strictly procedural (i.e., proper procedures were not followed before altering the previous rule banning such broadcasts), rather than a substantive ruling on the confidentiality of the hearings/trial. As such I would expect the record to be public. In any case, if portions are not public, a public redacted version should still be issued.
That said, hearing and trial transcripts are very long, and they are recorded and corrected by court reporters. This takes a great deal of effort and is not fast or free. Unless someone pays for rush processing, I would not expect full transcripts to be available for a couple weeks at least, and even then you will likely have to pay for them. There is a possibility, all things considered, that some news organization will buy them and post them entirely online, but in my experience, the posting of orders and transcripts in famous cases is haphazard and one-off. At any rate, you might want to watch for this, but the short story is that it's likely no one has access to a full transcript to perform a reenactment yet.
About the reenactment: I don't know what you have in mind so I can't comment on the legality of it, obviously, but I'm not sure what you would anticipate to be the problem with reading aloud a publicly-available document to an audience.
posted by rkent at 5:07 PM on January 13, 2010
Response by poster: ...I'm not sure what you would anticipate to be the problem with reading aloud a publicly-available document to an audience.
Thanks so much for your detailed and useful comment, rkent! My main legal concern is with the issue of reenacting the testimony using the actual likenesses of those testifying--whether that means displaying a photograph along with the testimony, or superimposing it. Though I am clearly opposed to Proposition 8 and want to attempt, in some small way, to undermine a degree of anonymity granted by the Supreme Court decision, I wouldn't want to undermine the effort by turning it into a joke segment or generating distorted, unflattering caricatures of those involved.
Even if the transcript were available, I don't know to what degree I could do something like this (testimony excerpts rather than full record, perhaps); but I wanted to assess that an accurate record of the testimony could be obtained before exploring it further.
posted by troybob at 5:23 PM on January 13, 2010
Thanks so much for your detailed and useful comment, rkent! My main legal concern is with the issue of reenacting the testimony using the actual likenesses of those testifying--whether that means displaying a photograph along with the testimony, or superimposing it. Though I am clearly opposed to Proposition 8 and want to attempt, in some small way, to undermine a degree of anonymity granted by the Supreme Court decision, I wouldn't want to undermine the effort by turning it into a joke segment or generating distorted, unflattering caricatures of those involved.
Even if the transcript were available, I don't know to what degree I could do something like this (testimony excerpts rather than full record, perhaps); but I wanted to assess that an accurate record of the testimony could be obtained before exploring it further.
posted by troybob at 5:23 PM on January 13, 2010
Here's another source for live blogging.
posted by grapesaresour at 5:47 PM on January 13, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by grapesaresour at 5:47 PM on January 13, 2010 [1 favorite]
There are a couple other ways to follow along. I'm currently "listening" via twitter, following a couple of different links. So that I'm not getting a wholly biased view, I'm following both @theadvocatemag and @alliancedefense. That pretty much gets the spin in both directions. Not a great option, certainly nothing like what you are looking for. But you get pretty much all the major quotes all day long. If I can be of any assistance if you choose to do your YouTube reenactments, let me know.
posted by greekphilosophy at 8:31 PM on January 13, 2010
posted by greekphilosophy at 8:31 PM on January 13, 2010
Reenactment of Prop. 8 Trial to be posted on YouTube (starting tomorrow).
posted by ericb at 9:50 AM on January 18, 2010
posted by ericb at 9:50 AM on January 18, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
It likely will be of use to anyone interested in following this case.
posted by dfriedman at 4:36 PM on January 13, 2010