Nevada Haters Ask For Do-Over Because Ninth Circuit Court Stacked The Deck

As Nevadan gays and lesbians enjoy the freedom to marry across the state after last week's unanimous ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in favor of same-sex marriage, the lawyer that represented the anti-gay Coalition for the Protection of Marriage has talked the group out of a bit more money with the idea of asking for a rehearing in the 9th Circuit en banc because, allegedly, the 9th Circuit stacked the deck in the gays favor.

Take note -  this is how to lose a case before you start.

Monte Stewart, lawyer for the Coalition, says that a full panel of judges should rehear the case due to the “high likelihood that the number of Judges [Stephen] Reinhardt and [Marsha] Berzon’s assignments to the Relevant Cases, including this and the Hawaii and Idaho marriage cases (which we treat as one for these purposes), did not result from a neutral judge-assignment process.”

Stewart says his claim is backed up by the result of “Careful statistical analysis” by Dr. James H. Matis.

From Chris Geidner at Buzzfeed:

Stewart went further, writing, “The appearance of unfairness is not a close question here. Even without the aid of professional statisticians, a reasonable person will immediately sense that something is amiss when one judge out of more than thirty is assigned over a four and one-half year period to five of this Circuit’s eleven cases involving the federal constitutional rights of gay men and lesbians, another to four of those cases, and both of them to the momentous ‘gay marriage’ cases.”

In an affidavit filed and signed by Stewart with the filing, he noted the legal team’s decision to obtain the analysis from Matis and contains Stewart’s personal conclusion that the panel of judges that heard the Nevada marriage case was one of the most favorable possible panels for the same-sex couple plaintiffs and “among the least favorable” for “the man-woman marriage side.” He then added that “such preferences and conclusions are known and understood by all at the Ninth Circuit involved with the judge-assignment process.”

Because of this claimed “appearance of unfairness,” Stewart argued in the request that an en banc rehearing is needed in order “to vindicate the values and integrity of [the appeals court’s] own judge-assignment process.”

What is important here, according to Stewart, is the "vivid appearance of unfairness." See, he's really concerned for the folks at the Ninth. What a guy.

Not a winning hand to play, if you ask me.

By the way, I'm not even sure if it was established that the anti-gay "Coalition" even had standing to argue against gay rights in the first place.

You can read the full brief here.