The biggest legal news story of the past week — even bigger than the confirmation of Elena Kagan, which was widely expected — was the ruling of Chief Judge Vaughn Walker (N.D. Cal.) in Perry v. Schwarzenegger. Judge Walker struck down California’s Proposition 8, a voter-passed ban on gay marriage, citing due process and equal protection grounds.
The decision was popular with Above the Law readers. In our poll, about 80 percent of you expressed support. But how many of you have actually read the entire 136-page ruling? If you’re looking for some fun this weekend, curl up with our special ATL edition of the opinion.
We’ve uploaded a version of the decision in fully hyperlinked form, i.e., with links to the authorities cited by Judge Walker. It’s available below….
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To access the PDF file, just click here. Save a copy of the document to your computer, then open it using Adobe Reader 7.0 (or higher).
Whenever you see a statute or case referenced in the opinion, you can click on the link and access the authority in question (provided that you’re reading it in Adobe Reader; this is why you need to download the document). This way you can see the citation in its original context.
We hope this will be a useful resource to some of our readers. Enjoy!
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(Thanks to George Ruge and ParaDocs for preparing the hyperlinked decision.)
Perry v. Schwarzenegger [hyperlinked decision – download as PDF]