Hero of the Day 2013-12-23 (Updated)

U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby (43) had been on the bench just six months when he was assigned Kitchen v. Herbert in March.

Shelby’s decision in the case Friday made same-sex marriage legal in Utah by finding the state same-sex marriage ban (that was voted into the state constitution by 66% of Utahns in 2004) is unconstitutional.

Shelby graduated from Utah State University in 1994 and the University of Virginia School of Law in 1998. He is married to his college sweetheart and has two children.

Before becoming a judge Shelby was a law clerk for U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Greene and spent eight years in the Utah Army National Guard. He worked at the Salt Lake City law firms of Snow, Christensen & Martineau and Burbidge Mitchell & Gross. He was nominated to the federal bench by President Barack Obama in November 2011 and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on September 22, 2012. 

Today Shelby denied the state's governors motion to stay the decision. 

BREAKING NEWS: Motion DENIED! Same-sex marriages continue in #Utah. @fox13now #Amendment3 #utpol
— Ben Winslow (@BenWinslow) 23 december 2013

Judge Shelby made it clear that any clerks who refuse to do their job by issuing licenses will be in contempt of court. #utpol
— Seth Anderson (@jsethanderson) 23 december 2013

We can expect the Utah governor to appeal the decision to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, they have done so twice already in anticipation of this ruling and have been kicked out of the appeals court both times.
---

UPDATE 2013-12-24
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the state's request for an emergency stay on Judge Richard Shelby's ruling. The appeals court said in its short ruling that a decision to put gay marriage on hold was not warranted, but said it put the case on the fast track for a full appeal of the ruling.

The denial means that Judge Robert Shelby's ruling to strike down Utah’s ban on same-sex couples marrying will remain in place during the appeal of the case, if it is not struck down by a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court to which Utah officials could appeal. Interim requests of the type that would be filed in this situation would go to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who oversees such requests from the 10th Circuit. She could either decide the matter on her own or refer the matter to the whole court for consideration.

URGENT: #Utah AG's Office confirms to @fox13now it will ask U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor for an emergency stay. #Amendment3 #utpol
— Ben Winslow (@BenWinslow) 25 december 2013

Mark the Day

This was indeed a day to remember!

Oh, a federal judge in Utah also struck down the state’s ban on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional.

District Court Judge Robert J. Shelby in his decision said: "Few questions are as politically charged in the current climate. This observation isespecially true where, as here, the state electorate has taken democratic action to participate in a popular referendum on this issue. It is only under exceptional circumstances that a court interferes with such action. But the legal issues presented in this lawsuit do not depend onwhether Utah’s laws were the result of its legislature or a referendum, or whether the laws passed by the widest or smallest of margins. The question presented here depends instead on the Constitution itself, and on the interpretation of that document contained in binding precedent from the Supreme Court and the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Applying the law as it is required to do, the court holds that Utah’s prohibition on same-sex marriage conflicts with the United States Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection and due process under the law. The State’s current laws deny its gay and lesbian citizens their fundamental right to marry and, in so doing, demean the dignity of these same-sex couples for norational reason. Accordingly, the court finds that these laws are unconstitutional."

Clouded Transparency

A fundamental part of the Swedish democratic structure is the rule that everything is public unless expressly declared to be classified by certain strict criteria. Most other nations have the opposite rule, where everything is secret unless expressly declared as public. 

These rules have been considered so important in Sweden that the laws surrounding them have been made into constitutional laws since 1766. According to the rules every document received, dispatched or drawn up by a public authority are to be made available without delay or cost to the public. The documents should be recorded in a diary without delay showing
a) the date the document was received, dispatched or drawn up by the authority,
b) the serial number or other designation that has been given to the document,
c) from whom the document has been received or to whom it has been dispatched and
d) a brief summary of what the document pertains.

Today it was revealed that the Cabinet Office has been fiddling with the rules in an attempt to cover up a scandal that erupted earlier this year concerning a weapons factory collaboration between Sweden and the Saudi Arabian dictatorship. An email from 2010 has been removed from the Cabinet Office´s diary contrary to all rules. The email contained sensitive information showing that the Swedish government was well aware of the illegal and irregular setup of the collaboration, long before the time when the government have previously admitted to any knowledge of the scheme.
---

The fact that it has been revealed that the highest public officials in the country have been involved in such unconstitutional acts that have undermined well established rules of the Swedish democracy is certain to have serious ramifications.