Lawffice Links (plus bonus prediction!) - DOMA and Prop 8

The same-sex marriage cases at the Supreme Court have garnered tons of media coverage. The public is so interested in these cases that #SCOTUS was even a trending topic on Twitter! Let's not get too carried away though . . . "CatsAreSluts" was an even more popular trending topic on Twitter on Tuesday. Nevertheless, I baked some fresh Lawffice Links to catch up on the latest:

• Court to Tackle California's Ban on Same Sex Marriage: In Plain English - SCOTUSblog provides a nice summary of the Prop 8 case.
• Prop 8 Supreme Court oral arguments: Transcript | Audio
• DOMA as a States' Rights Problem: In Plain English - SCOTUSblog tackles the DOMA case.
• DOMA Supreme Court oral arguments: Transcript | Audio
• Scalia Furious he has to Hear About Gay Couples All Week - This is from The Borowitz Report . . . it is *satire* - like The Onion - it is not real. I can't even begin to tell you how many people on Twitter apparently thought this was a real story (some of them even petitioned to have Justice Scalia recuse himself from the case based on this!).

My predictions? I'm going to go with (what I think are) the prevailing predictions amongst court-watchers:

Prop 8 - Majority decision holding the Petitioners lacked standing, resulting in the 9th Circuit District Court (?) opinion striking down Prop 8 being the final word (no nationwide SCOTUS precedent on a right to same-sex marriage).

DOMA - Fractured opinion striking down DOMA with the four-Justice liberal bloc holding that it violates a right to same-sex marriage and Justice Kennedy (who I predict will pick up a buddy or two)  holding that it violates federalism principles (there will probably also be some votes for SCOTUS lacking the authority to hear the case because Obama wouldn't defend it - even though he enforces it. A group of GOP representatives did defend it, but it's questionable whether that's good enough because they're not a real party in the case).

The end result being that there is still no Supreme Court precedent on a right to same-sex marriage . . . but Prop 8 and DOMA both get struck down.