Sixth Circuit schedules same-sex marriage appeals for argument on August 6

We are waiting on the Fourth Circuit and Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals to issue opinions any day now in the same-sex marriage appeals argued earlier this year.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear same-sex marriage appeals from Idaho and Nevada in September.

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, in an unusual move, has scheduled all four same-sex marriage appeals pending before that Court for argument on August 6, 2014. Sixth Circuit sets oral arguments in same-sex marriage cases from four states:

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has formally scheduled arguments in all of its pending same-sex marriage cases, for August 6.

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The court is hearing cases from Michigan, Tennessee, Kentucky, and two from Ohio. The arguments are set to begin at 1PM on that day, and last for over three hours.

The Sixth Circuit has divided up the time:

Michigan: Arguments in DeBoer v. Snyder will be one hour, with 30 minutes per side.

Ohio: Arguments in Henry v. Himes and Obergefell v. Himes will be one hour, with 30 minutes per side.

Kentucky: Arguments in Bourke v. Beshear will be 30 minutes, 15 minutes per side.

Tennessee: Arguments in Tanco v. Haslam will be 30 minutes, 15 minutes per side.

Only one of the cases, DeBoer, involves a challenge to a state’s ban on performing same-sex marriages. The rest are related to the various states’ refusal to recognize same-sex marriages performed outside of the state. The Tanco case reached the Sixth Circuit on an appeal from a preliminary injunction requiring Tennessee to recognize the legal same-sex marriages of three couples.

The names of the judges on the panel will be announced two weeks before argument, likely on July 23.

Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog.com adds, Four-way hearing on same-sex marriage:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, set to review a same-sex marriage case from each of the four states in its geographic area, will consider all four of them before the same three-judge panel on August 6, the court said in orders issued Monday.  The Ohio order, the same as the others except for time allowed, is here.

Same-sex marriage cases are now in progress in five federal appeals courts, with hearings already held in the Fourth Circuit (a Virginia case) and the Tenth Circuit (cases from Oklahoma and Utah).  Decisions in any of those cases apparently could come any day, and one or both of them could reach the Supreme Court in a matter of months.

Cases are not so far along in the Fifth Circuit (a Texas case), the Sixth Circuit (Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee cases), and the Ninth Circuit (Idaho, Nevada, and Oregon cases and a leftover case from Hawaii, where same-sex marriage is now legal).

These cases are headed for the U.S. Supreme Court’s docket in its new term beginning in October.

Meanwhile, a federal judge in Pennsylvania sharply rebuked a county clerk for trying to keep alive a challenge to same-sex marriage in the state, accusing her of “using her office as a platform” for making “a contrived legal argument” that represents only her own personal views. Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog.com reports, Same-sex marriage and a county clerk’s role:

U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III of Harrisburg made the comments on Wednesday in refusing to allow the Schuykill County clerk to enter a case over marriage rights in Pennsylvania.

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In Pennsylvania, the governor and other state officials opted not to challenge Judge Jones’s May 20 ruling striking down the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.  The Schuylkill County clerk, Theresa Santai-Gaffney, of Pottsville, decided to try to keep alive a defense of the ban.  She asked Judge Jones to allow her to intervene formally to do so, and asked him to postpone his ruling so she could appeal it to the Third Circuit.

Blocking her intervention and dismissing her postponement plea, Judge Jones said that he respected Ms. Santai-Gaffney’s “evidently deep personal disagreement with our decision to strike down the marriage laws.  That said, we lament that she has used her office as a platform to file the motion we dispose of today.”

Noting that state officials have declined to appeal the case, and that they also had ordered officials like the Schuylkill County clerk to obey Judge Jones’s decision, the judge said that the county clerk could have no doubt about what her official duty now is.  “For her to represent otherwise,” the judge added, “is wholly disingenuous.”

He concluded: “At bottom, what we have before us is a contrived legal argument by a private citizen who seeks to accomplish what the chief executive of the Commonwealth, in his wisdom, has declined to do.”

Meanwhile, the county clerk’s appeal to the Third Circuit is pending, and that court indicated on Wednesday that it is considering disposing of her challenge by “summary action” — that is, without legal arguments, written or oral.