NOM BLOG

Law School Dean: Judge Walker's admission warrants vacating Prop 8 ruling

 

John C. Eastman is the Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service and former Dean at Chapman University School of Law. He is also the founding director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence. He writes in the San Francisco Chronicle:

... Walker's admission [last week] requires that his decision in the case be vacated. He is either a direct beneficiary of his ruling in the case, or a person with a close-enough personal interest in the case that his impartiality might reasonably have been questioned if the required disclosures had been made. InĀ Liljeberg vs. Health Services Acquisition Corp., the U.S. Supreme Court held that vacatur is required even when the disqualifying relationship only became known to the parties 10 months after the judgment entered in the case had been upheld on appeal. Where an objective observer would have questioned the judge's impartiality, recusal is required, and the appropriate remedy is to vacate the judgment because of the risk of injustice to the parties and of undermining the public's confidence in the judicial process.

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