In an unexpected ruling from the bench today at about 4:20pm, Judge Mosman through out the case by out-of-state, anti-gay forces, allowing Oregon's Domestic Partnership law to go into effect immediately.
The ruling prompted applause and cheering in front of the courthouse and was greeted by honking cars passing by on SW 3rd Ave downtown.
Here are the details of what happened in the courtroom (via Just Out):
Only two witnesses, handwriting experts, were called today to be cross examined (all witnesses submitted their testimony by deposition). Heather Carlson, a forensics expert who trains clerks in the elections office, made a very weak case for the standard by which clerks use in determining the genuineness of signatures. Mosman later chastised the Secretary of State on that count.
Throughout the hearing, the plaintiffs, the Alliance Defense Fund, attempted to argue that signers of petition 303, which attempted to refer Oregon's domestic partnership law to voters, were constitutionally entitled to have their signatures counted, just as participants are in the vote-by-mail process.
The Secretary of State's attorney and Basic Rights Oregon's attorney argued that these signatures were not at all protected by the strict scrutiny of voters on ballots and that the petition process is actually at the whim of the petition controller, who is by no means a state official.
Although Mosman's ruling from the bench was swift, it was thorough. He engaged with attorneys throughout their closing arguments, asking both sides tough questions and citing a range of precedent that only the attorneys were following.
Mosman's ruling, which he said would be available this evening by clicking here, basically stated that the state never promised petition signers that their "votes" would be counted, therefore, they were not entitled to due process (he acknowledged this was a cruel thing to say) such as having their signatures rehabilitated.
Mosman agreed that calling every "disenfranchised" signer, which statistically represented 20 other signers, would place an unrealistic burden on the Secretary of State's office, which has 30 days to verify the signatures. He further said it was impractical to let one person speak for 20.
Alliance Defense Fund attorney Austin Nimocks told the media after the hearing that this was a sad day for Oregonians who sign petitions with the belief that our voices will be heard. He confirmed everyone's guess that an appeal will be filed. He would not extrapolate.
Marylin Shannon, a spokeswoman for the ad hoc committee of petition gatherers, also confirmed that she was ready to call on her resources for a reversal of this ruling.
Jeana Frazzini spoke for Basic Rights Oregon, saying that although she was surprised that Mosman ruled today, the outcome was expected. "I expected to win on the merits of this case," she said.
In any case, same-sex couples here in Oregon now have Domestic Partnerships. Though it is the law right this second, county buildings will not be open until 9am on Monday morning.
We'll be down at the county building snapping some photos at the Multnomah County building here in Portland and we will bring you those photos of this amazing, long awaited day.
What a long, long journey this has been.
IMPORTANT DETAILS IF YOU ARE PLANNING ON GETTING DOMESTIC PARTNERED:Oregon has already made the Declaration of Domestic Partnership form available (they sure wasted no time getting this up!). you can download them here:
http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/ph/chs/order/dp.shtml. IMPORTANT: This MUST be printed on legal size paper for them to accept it.
For additional details - please visit Basic Rights Oregon's Domestic Partnership Resource Guide located
here.
Labels: domestic partnership, lawsuit, lemons v bradbury, oregon
