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Beat reporter gets chief justice to talk

By Mark Obbie

The LA Times' California Supreme Court reporter, Maura Dolan, produced a revealing piece on Chief Justice Ronald George, author of Thursday's 4-3 majority opinion holding that the state's ban on same-sex marriage violates the state constitution. Dolan reports that George sat for a two-hour interview, and shares his thoughts about the case's place in history and how the opposing justices reflected honest differences of opinion without rancor. Oddly, amid George's many comments on the decision, Dolan writes that "court rules bar George from discussing the ruling until it takes effect in 30 days or more." But she goes on to explain where George might have drawn that line, nothing that "during the two-hour interview with The Times, he refused to disclose anything about the court's internal deliberations and responded to a number of questions by reading aloud from the decision." So the whole piece is either a testament to George's liberal interpretation of the rule or Dolan's skill as an interviewer, or both.

Full post as published by Lawbeat on May 18, 2008 (boomark / email).