OP/ED

The San Francisco Chronicle has an editorial by former California attorney general candidate John Eastman calling out Judge Vaughn Walker and his recent coming OUT event. Eastman wants Walker's ruling overturned in the Prop 8 case because Walker can personally benefit from his ruling, since Walker is a gay man.

As a side note, NOM supported Eastman's failed 2010 CA. attorny general nominee campaign but no where in the editorial does that fact appear.

Walker's admission requires that his decision in the case be vacated. He is either a direct beneficiary of his ruling in the case, or a person with a close-enough personal interest in the case that his impartiality might reasonably have been questioned if the required disclosures had been made. In Liljeberg vs. Health Services Acquisition Corp., the U.S. Supreme Court held that vacatur is required even when the disqualifying relationship only became known to the parties 10 months after the judgment entered in the case had been upheld on appeal. Where an objective observer would have questioned the judge's impartiality, recusal is required, and the appropriate remedy is to vacate the judgment because of the risk of injustice to the parties and of undermining the public's confidence in the judicial process