Retired federal judge Vaughn Walker today responded to a complaint that he illegally used a video clip of the Prop. 8 trial during a presentation he made at the University of Arizona.
In a letter to the 9th Circuit Court clerk, Walker says that in previous speeches about cameras in the courtroom he used video of a dramatic re-enactment of the trial, instead of the actual clips.
Walker wrote that he decided to use the actual clip because he thought it would be "permissable and appropriate". He acknowledges that he used the same clip at Federal Bar Association meeting in Riverside last month and in a law class he's teaching at UC Berkeley. He also plans to use it again next week when he speaks at Gonzaga University Law School.
"If the court believes that my possession of the videos as part of my judicial papers is inappropriate, I shall, of course, abide by that or any other directive the court makes," Walker writes.
He ends by noting the Perry case involved a public trial and then quotes the late Chief Justice Warren Berger: "People in an open society do not demand infallability (sic) in their institutions, but it is difficult for them to accept what they are prohibited from observing."