San Diego City Attorney Drops Charges Against Marriage Activists (tags)
Six members of the Equality Nine, marriage equality activists arrested over two years ago for going to the San Diego County Clerk's office and demanding marriage licenses for same-sex couples, were vindicated August 24 when city attorney Jan Goldsmith filed a motion to dismiss all charges. Originally scheduled for April 30, the scheduled trial had already been delayed until September because the judge in the case found the prosecution had been discriminating against Queer potential jurors and dissolved the jury pool. The Equality Nine regard this as a victory for marriage equality and free speech.
San Diego Marriage Equality Trial Delayed (tags)
A funny thing happened to the six remaining defendants in the Equality Nine case — members of the San Diego Alliance for Marriage Equality (S.A.M.E.) who were arrested while demonstrating for marriage equality at the San Diego County Clerk’s office August 19, 2010 — on their way to a trial that was supposed to begin April 30. Judge Joan Weber, discovered that prosecutors had systematically excluded Queers from the jury pool, and she threw out the entire jury pool and decided that the case would have to start over September 18.