Legal News

Closing arguments wrap up DADT trial in Riverside

By Richard Binder

Closing arguments were given in the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" trial in Riverside on Friday.

Last month, U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips set forth the standard of proof that both sides had to meet. She based it on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit's 2008 decision Witt v. Dep't of the Air Force, in which Circuit Judge Ronald M. Gould said the defendant "must demonstrate that the 'Don?t Ask, Don?t Tell' statute meets the requirements of strict scrutiny?that it is necessary to serve a compelling governmental interest and that it sweeps no more broadly than necessary."

Dan Woods, a partner in the Los Angeles office of White & Case representing the Log Cabin Republicans pro bono, said the policy served no such interest and cited the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, where the court found that state's criminalization of private, consensual sodomy unconstitutional.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Freeborne, defending the policy for the government, said: "Log Cabin has endeavored to spend the last few weeks presenting the court with a policy debate ? a debate it lost in 1993 before Congress."

Full story at NLJ.com.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on July 26, 2010 (boomark / email).