Sua Sponte

Thought #1

California started handing out wedding licenses last night at 5:01pm.  You can read more about it here. Some counties are refusing to hand out the licenses and perform marriages while in other counties, the mayor is transforming his office into a wedding chapel to help same-sex couples celebrate the remarkable occasion.  The changes in New York and California have been incredibly exciting this spring and I only hope that it is the beginning of a trend across the country.  (I know that’s probably an overly-optimistic hope, but we can all be a little irrational sometimes, right?)

Thought #2

I am clerking for a federal judge in Vermont this summer and was somewhat surprised by what I heard at a hearing yesterday.  The lawyers were arguing about two motions in limine, one asking to admit certain evidence and one asking to exclude certain evidence in a civil rights case against a police officer and a Vermont municipality.  The judge didn’t rule on the motions, but the defense lawyers thought he was leaning toward granting both motions in favor of the plaintiff.  I had done some research on the two motions and knew the legal arguments on both sides pretty well.  However, I was unprepared for the defense attorney’s argument.  The defense attorney asked the judge that since the plaintiff was going to get to exclude evidence they didn’t want in, shouldn’t the city get to exclude some evidence they didn’t want in?  That’s right folks, it was a tit for tat argument.  Instead of pointing out the legal basis for the exclusion (which there were plenty) and poking holes in the plaintiff’s arguments (again, plenty), the lawyer resorted to fourth grade playground bargaining of a tit for tat nature.

Perhaps its naive of me to be surprised by this, but i’m curious about what others think, particularly those who are spending/have spent a lot of time in court.