Talk:Hollingsworth v. Perry

Jurisdiction for the ruling of the Supreme Court
I'm puzzled about what the majority did in this case. They found that the petitioners did not have standing to bring the appeal. Doesn't it follow that the US Supreme Court lacked jurisdiction to do anything other than dismiss (or possibly quash) the appeal? But that's not what the Supreme Court did; instead it vacated the Circuit Court's decision and remanded. How can the Supreme Court have jurisdiction to vacate the decision appealed from, if nobody had standing to bring that appeal? Mathew5000 (talk) 19:53, 14 July 2013 (UTC)


 * AIUI, the SC was ruling not just on whether the petitioners could appeal to the Supreme Court, but also whether they could appeal to the Ninth Circuit. Because the answer to both questions was "no", the Ninth Circuit appeal was invalidated (as well as the SC appeal). The article could probably be a bit clearer on this, but I'm not sure how to go about doing so. Andrew Gray (talk) 20:03, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
 * The S. Ct.'s appeal wasn't "invalidated". Otherwise, you are correct, although I'm not sure I would describe it the way you have. The S. Ct. found that the 9th circuit did not have jurisdiction of the appeal from the district court. Therefore, they ordered the 9th circuit to "dismiss" the appeal. The S. Ct. also found that it did not have jurisdiction because of the petitioner's lack of standing. Without jurisdiction, the S. Ct. could not go to the merits.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:17, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Right, I understand all that, and obviously there's no problem if the S. Ct. wants to say in obiter dicta that the 9th Circuit should not have heard the appeal on the merits, but it seems very odd for the S. Ct. to have issued an order formally vacating the 9th Circuit decision when nobody had standing to bring the appeal before the S. Ct. on any issue, even the standing issue itself. Mathew5000 (talk) 22:11, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
 * The S. Ct. held that the 9th circuit did not have jurisdiction; it wasn't dicta. I frankly don't understand what you're saying.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:57, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
 * The U.S. Supreme Court had to throw out (vacate) the Ninth Circuit decision because Prop 8 sponsors did not have the legal authority to be defending Prop 8 in that case...it wasn't proper for the Ninth Circuit to hear their appeal (no jurisdiction). When the U.S. Supreme Court said the Prop 8 sponsors did not have Article III standing to appeal the district court decision, that meant that they do not have standing in any federal court. Judge Walker's decision stands because that case was defended by lawyers for the Governor and Attorney General (who were nonexistent during appeal), as well as the Prop 8 sponsor lawyer Charles Cooper - as intervenor. The U.S. Supreme can review an issue of standing without getting to the merits of a case, which is what it did here. Jurisdiction refers to the ability of a court to rule on the merits or central legal issues of the case before them. As the head of the federal court system, the U.S. Supreme Court said the Ninth Circuit's trial shouldn't have happened and the ruling had to be thrown out. Hope that cleared everything up. Teammm  $talk email$ 01:57, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
 * The case was not defended by the governor and the attorney general. They were named by the plaintiffs, and they refused to defend. Also, standing at the trial court level is not the same as standing at the appellate level. The procedural posture is obviously different, and standing, of course, always depends on the parties bringing the case. The parties bringing the case at the trial level were the gay couples. The parties appealing were the proponents of Prop 8.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:53, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
 * No, it's not completely correct to say “Jurisdiction refers to the ability of a court to rule on the merits or central legal issues of the case before them”; jurisdiction also refers to the ability of a court to hear issues of procedure and to issue orders that may be procedural in nature. In any event that's true in the British and other common-law systems; is it really the case that in American law, the term "jurisdiction" is used only in reference to the merits of a case? Anyway if nobody sees the issue I'm pointing out with the logic of the S.Ct. making an order vacating the decision of the court below, in the absence of any of the parties having had standing to bring the case to the Supreme Court, then I guess it's no big deal. Thanks for trying to help. Mathew5000 (talk) 02:29, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
 * All you need to know is that the S.Ct. was within its power to rule on the standing issue and vacate the 9th Circuit decision. The S.Ct. is the highest court in America and has the last say over any other. The S.Ct. doesn't need to have jurisdiction to hear the constitutionality arguments in order to rule on whether the Prop 8 sponsors had standing in the lower court. They are two separate questions to the court/issues in the case. The S.Ct. granted review because it was necessary to clarify that the Prop 8 sponsors did not have standing. I don't understand what your logic is. Teammm  $talk email$ 03:05, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Focus of the lead and infobox
Shouldn't the lede and also the infobox focus on the much more significant circuit court decision? After all, it's the ruling that banning gay marriage violates due process and equal protection that is the truly significant part of this case; the Supreme Courts ruling on standing is a mere technical footnote in comparison. The lede should thus give more depth to the gay marriage circuit court case and mention the Supreme Court ruling as a footnote - similarly, there should, in this case, be two infoboxes, first for Perry v Schwarzenegger on the gay marriage ruling and second on Hollingsworth v Perry on the standing issue. I'm sure this isn't the typical way to describe a Supreme Court case, but this is not a typical case. Ego White Tray (talk) 20:50, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

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