Granting pending summary judgment motions in two pending marriage equality cases, Senior U.S. District Judge John W. Sedwick ruled on October 16 that Arizona’s constitutional and statutory same-sex marriage bans violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Connolly v. Jeanes, 2:14-cv-00024 JWS (D. Ariz.); Majors v. Horne, 2:14-cv-00518 JWS (D. Ariz.). Sedwick, who was appointed to the U.S. District Court in Alaska by President George H.W. Bush, hears many Arizona cases by assignment to help out the understaffed district court in that state.
Lambda Legal and pro bono counsel from the law firm Perkins Coie LLP, filed the complaint in Majors on March 13, and had previously secured from Judge Sedwick an emergency order on behalf of one of the co-plaintiffs, whose same-sex spouse had died and who desired to have the death certificate accurately reflect their marriage and his status as a surviving spouse based on their recent California marriage. In that ruling, signed on September 12, see 2014 WL 4541173, the judge left little doubt that the plaintiffs were likely to prevail, and he ordered the state to provide the relief that had been requested on behalf of Fred McQuire. However, the 9th Circuit’s subsequent ruling in Latta v. Otter, 2014 WL 4977682 (9th Cir. Oct. 7, 2014), sealed the matter both for this case and for the other pending case.
“When the pending motions were filed,” wrote Sedwick, “their resolution would have required this court to produce a lengthy and detailed opinion. However, in the interim, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently ruled that substantially identical provisions of Nevada and Idaho law that prohibited same-sex marriages are invalid because they deny same-sex couples equal protection of the law, the right to which is guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. This court is bound by the precedent set by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. For that reason, the plaintiffs are entitled to a declaration that the challenged laws are unconstitutional and a permanent injunction prohibiting their enforcement.” Sedwick went on to explain that he had considered whether to stay his ruling pending appeal, but decided that “an appeal to the Ninth Circuit would be futile” and that the Supreme Court was likely to “turn a deaf ear on any request for relief from the Ninth Circuit’s decision” in light of its recent denials of certiorari in all pending state appeals of marriage equality rulings. He might have added, as well, the Court’s refusal to grant Idaho’s emergency stay application seeking to delay same-sex marriages while that state prepared a motion for rehearing en banc of the 9th Circuit’s opinion.
Concluded Sedwick, after declaring the challenged provisions unconstitutional, “It is further ordered that the defendants are hereby ordered to permanently cease enforcement of those provisions of Arizona law declared unconstitutional by this order. Finally, this court declines to stay the effect of this order.” He denied the defendants’ cross-motion for summary judgment.
The Connolly complaint was filed by a group of Phoenix and Flagstaff attorneys in January, and was later consolidated with Lambda Legal’s case before Judge Sedwick. Because of pending motions in other cases, the question of how many states allow same-sex marriage and how to number Arizona on the list was a bit perplexing on the day the decision was announced, but it seemed that ultimately there would be about 35 states on the list when the dust settled after follow-up action in the 4th, 9th and 10th Circuit states that had not been directly involved in the cases upon which those circuits had ruled.