Equality On Trial

All parties in DOMA case ask Supreme Court for 125 minutes to argue case

February 27, 2013

DOMA trials Windsor

By Scottie Thomaston

The Solicitor General is asking the Supreme Court for a longer argument time in United States v. Windsor, the constitutional challenge to Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act. All parties to the case join the government in the request. The filing says that “[i]n light of the Court’s addition of the two threshold jurisdictional questions to the question presented in the petition and the Court’s appointment of an amica curiae to brief and argue those questions” and in light of the numerous filings in the case, the argument should be 125 minutes instead of the standard one-hour argument.

SCOTUSBlog has the proposed time schedule:

On the question of the Court’s authority to decide — that is, the jurisdiction over the government’s appeal and the right of the House GOP leaders to pursue an appeal — the motion suggested a total of 65 minutes, in this order: Court-appointed amici, 25 minutes; Solicitor General, for the U.S., 15 minutes; House GOP (Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group), 15 minutes, and challenger Edith Schlain Windsor, 10 minutes. (The Court-appointed amici is Harvard professor Vicki C. Jackson.)

On the constitutionality of DOMA’s Section 3 — the ban on federal marriage benefits for same-sex couples who are legally married under state law — the motion suggested a total of 60 minutes, in this order: House GOP (BLAG), defending the law, 30 minutes; SG, for the U.S., 15 minutes, and Ms Windsor, 15 minutes. (The motion noted that the Court-appointed amici, who is involved only on the jurisdictional issues, took no position on this separate proposal.)

The separated arguments would be back-to-back on Wednesday, March 27, starting at 10 a.m. No other case is scheduled for argument that day.

The Court hasn’t taken any action yet.

No request has yet been made to expand the time for argument in Hollingsworth v. Perry, the Prop 8 case.

h/t Kathleen

Windsor: Parties' Motion re Argument by EqualityCaseFiles

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