text: The now-retired federal judge who struck down California's ban on same-sex marriage shared his reflections with reporters for the first time Wednesday, saying that the trial should have been televised and that he never considered stepping aside because he is gay. 
   
   "If you thought a judge's sexuality, ethnicity, national origin (or) gender would prevent the judge from handling a case, that's a very slippery slope," former Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker told reporters in a conference room at the San Francisco courthouse where he served for 21 years. 
   
   "I don't think it's relevant," he said. 
   
   Independent thinker 
   
   Walker, 67, who retired from the bench at the end of February, also said he thinks his ruling was correct and he hopes higher courts review the case on its merits. 
   
   He discussed the case in his first meeting with reporters since he announced his retirement in September. 
   
   A former corporate lawyer who was appointed to the bench by President George H.W. Bush, Walker proved to be an independent thinker - a libertarian who advocated decriminalization of drugs and issued groundbreaking rulings limiting government power and expanding individual rights. 
   
   His most prominent ruling was his August decision overturning Proposition 8, the November 2008 initiative that amended the state Constitution to outlaw same-sex marriage. 
   
   Same-sex-marriage ruling 
   
   After a 12-day trial that included testimony by gay and lesbian couples and experts on the history and purpose of marriage, Walker ruled that Prop. 8 discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation and gender and did not benefit heterosexual spouses or the marital institution. 
   
   The measure's sponsors have asked a federal appeals court to overturn the ruling, but the court has questioned whether the sponsors have legal standing - the right to represent the state's interests - after then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown declined to appeal. 
   
   Walker first raised that issue in August, citing a U.S. Supreme Court decision that expressed doubt about whether sponsors of an initiative can stand in for state officials. But he said Wednesday he'd prefer to see the appeals court decide whether Prop. 8 is unconstitutional. 
   
   If Prop. 8 is invalidated because no one has the standing to defend it, he said, it will leave "a sense of the issue not having been resolved." 
   
   The Chronicle first disclosed Walker's sexual orientation during the trial, a fact he had neither discussed publicly nor tried to conceal. He said Wednesday he'd been surprised that it hadn't surfaced earlier and had surmised that "every journalist had decided it was not news." 
   
   The disclosure prompted some opponents of same-sex marriage to accuse Walker of bias and demand that he disqualify himself. Walker noted Wednesday that no parties in the case, including Prop. 8's sponsors, ever made such a request, and said, "I never thought it was appropriate to recuse from that case." 
   
   Television coverage 
   
   Walker also tried to have the trial televised as part of a pilot project approved by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but the Supreme Court intervened at the request of the measure's sponsors, who said their witnesses might back out for fear of retribution if they knew a large audience would be watching. 
   
   The high court said Walker had failed to give enough advance public notice and also questioned whether such a high-profile case should be telecast. But Walker said Wednesday that trials of great public interest - Prop. 8, or the current Barry Bonds perjury trial - are the ones that should be most visible outside the courtroom. 
   
   "We are supposed to have public trials in this country," he said, and the only way that can happen now is "to admit the public by their eyes and ears." 
   
   Walker said the Supreme Court may have been motivated by its unwillingness to televise its own proceedings - a stance he called "very hard to understand." Camera coverage would expose Americans to a range of arguments and the high quality of lawyers and the court system, he said. 
   
   Walker is returning to private law practice as head of a San Francisco firm that will specialize in mediation, arbitration and other alternatives to litigating complex civil cases. Those were his most satisfying cases as a judge, he said. 
   
   He was also the judge who ruled the George W. Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping of suspected terrorists illegal and rejected Apple Computer's claim that Microsoft Corp. had illicitly copied Apple Macintosh features in the Windows operating system. 
   
   But Walker said his favorite trial was the 2000 case in which he approved Hearst Corp.'s purchase of The Chronicle. It had everything, he said - local color, meaty antitrust issues, surprising testimony, and political and journalistic intrigue. 
   
   "If every trial were like that, I'd stay forever," he said. 
   
   This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle ||||| Should judge have recused himself on Prop. 8? On Same-Sex Marriage 
   
   Same sex marriage supporters hold a rally in the Castro district after US District Judge Vaughn Walker announced his ruling to overturn Prop 8 finding it unconstitutional August 4, 2010 in San Francisco, California. The voter approved measure denies same-sex couples the right to marry in the State of California. Photograph by David Paul Morris/Special to the Chronicle less Same sex marriage supporters hold a rally in the Castro district after US District Judge Vaughn Walker announced his ruling to overturn Prop 8 finding it unconstitutional August 4, 2010 in San Francisco, ... more Photo: David Paul Morris, Special To The Chronicle Photo: David Paul Morris, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 59 Caption Close Should judge have recused himself on Prop. 8? 1 / 59 Back to Gallery 
   
   Judge Vaughn Walker's Proposition 8 decision last week has thrust his personal life into the limelight. The San Francisco Chronicle has reported that the fact that Judge Walker "is himself gay" is the "biggest open secret" in town. The BuzzTab blog calls him "the apple of gay advocators eyes." The Los Angeles Times reported just last month, after the conclusion of closing arguments in the case, that he is "openly gay" and "attends bar functions with a companion, a physician." 
   
   Is any of this relevant to Judge Walker's ruling striking down Proposition 8? 
   
   Well, as University of Notre Dame law Professor Gerard Bradley recently noted, the mere fact that Judge Walker may be homosexual would not necessarily have required recusal. But the fact that he "attends bar functions with a companion, a physician," and may therefore be in a stable homosexual relationship of the kind that could lead to marriage, is an entirely different matter. 
   
   The political philosopher John Locke noted in his Second Treatise on Civil Government that "it is unreasonable for men to be judges in their own cases (because) self-love will make men partial to themselves and their friends." That sentiment, undoubtedly true, is actually codified in federal law. A judge is required to disqualify himself in any proceeding "in which the judge's impartiality might reasonably be questioned, including but not limited to instances in which: (a) the judge has ... personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding; [or] ... (c) the judge knows that the judge ... has a financial ... or any other interest that could be affected substantially by the outcome of the proceeding." 
   
   If Judge Walker is indeed in a long-term, same-sex relationship, he certainly has an "interest that could be affected substantially by the outcome of the proceeding" - he and his partner are now permitted to marry! - and that, according to Judge Walker's own finding, has financial benefits as well. Such conflicts would have required recusal, and cannot be waived by the parties. 
   
   If the relationship does not create such a conflict, it nevertheless creates the circumstance "in which the judge's impartiality might reasonably be questioned." That ground for disqualification can be waived by the parties, but the judge must "disclose on the record the basis of the disqualification" and then only continue after the parties have agreed in writing to his continued involvement. No such disclosure and agreement occurred in this case. 
   
   Judge Walker's failure to disqualify himself or at least to disclose his potentially disqualifying relationship to the parties requires that the opinion in the case be vacated and a new trial conducted before a different judge. In Liljeberg vs. Health Services Acquisition Corp., the Supreme Court held that the original judgment had to be set aside 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 annul the judgment because of the risk of injustice to the parties and of undermining the public's confidence in the judicial process. 
   
   Given the high-profile nature of this case, the threat to the public's confidence in the judicial process is particularly acute. Judge Walker has unilaterally neutered the votes of more than 7 million Californians. A contentious step under the best of circumstances, such a decision should only be rendered, if at all, by a judge whose impartiality is beyond reproach. Judge Walker's, unfortunately, is not. ||||| g'day m8 
   
   Acknowledging his sexuality for the first time in public, Vaughn Walker, who left the U.S. District Court bench in February, and who declared Prop 8 unconstitutional and is now seeing his court ruling bandied about on appeal, told reporters today that not only is he a big ‘mo, but he’s also been in a relationship with his partner for 10 years. As for the argument that gay judges can somehow not rule on cases involving sexuality, Walker takes the same position Queerty always has: immutable characteristics like sexuality, race, and gender are not judicial conflicts of interest. Taking those traits into consideration when a judge decides whether to recuse himself from a case, says Walker, is “a very slippery slope.” The Los Angeles Times, stupidly, would disagree.
target: – The judge who overturned California's ban on gay marriage acknowledged in an interview for the first time that he's homosexual and that he never considered recusing himself from the case. "If you thought a judge's sexuality, ethnicity, national origin (or) gender would prevent the judge from handling a case, that's a very slippery slope," retired federal Judge Vaughn Walker tells the San Francisco Chronicle. "I don't think it's relevant." The Chronicle actually reported on Walker's sexual orientation during the Prop 8 trial, prompting critics, like this one, to stay he should have stepped down because he had a conflict of interest. ("He and his partner are now permitted to marry!") Nope, says the gay blog Queerty after the Walker interview. "Immutable characteristics like sexuality, race, and gender are not judicial conflicts of interest."