The dust has settled from the Supreme Court’s decision to accept four new gay-marriage cases, and here is a look at the key dates and deadlines before the nine Justices.
On Friday afternoon, the Court said it was taking on the appeals from the Sixth Circuit after a divided court there upheld existing bans on same-sex marriages.
The ruling in November from Judge Jeffrey Sutton in the Sixth Circuit Appeals Court went against a series of rulings against the bans in other federal courts. Sutton’s ruling applied to four states: Ohio, Michigan, Tennessee and Kentucky.
Over the next five to six months, lawyers will argue, clerks will brief and pundits will offer predictions about how the Court will rule.
Here are the basic facts of the case, or cases, and when the key events will happen.
1. The Supreme Court will consider two questions: Does the 14th Amendment require a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex? And does the 14th Amendment require a state to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-state?
2. The combined case will be known as Obergefell v. Hodges. The cases were grouped together on the Court’s order sheet, and this was listed first on the docket. The Obergefell case is from Ohio. The other cases are Tanco v. Haslam from Tennessee; DeBoer v. Snyder is the Michigan case; and Bourke v. Beshear in the Kentucky case.
3. The lawyers for the petitioners, who are arguing in support of same-sex marriage, have until February 27 to file their briefs with the Court. If that seems like a tight time frame, it is. But it was widely expected the Court would take the cases in some form. The Obama administration will file a friend of the Court brief in support of the petitioners.
4. The states involved have until March 27 to file their briefs that support the argument that their state legal measures against same-sex marriages are constitutional.
5. The final legal briefs are due on April 17 at 2 p.m., which is a Friday. That will make for a busy weekend for the Supreme Court clerks since the Justices will likely hear the arguments by the end of April, with April 29 the last scheduled day for arguments.
6. The session in Court will last 2 and ½ hours. The first hour and 30 minutes will address the first question presented by the Court: If the 14th Amendment requires states to issue same-sex marriage licenses? The final hour will address the second question, about the recognition of same-sex marriages from other states.
7. Based on the past several years, the Court’s decision could come in June. The Court has issued landmark decisions, in the past two years, in late June. There is a chance the Court could extend its calendar to early July. The United States v. Windsor case decision in 2012 was issued on June 26 after it was argued in late March. But the Court could always surprise the legal experts with the decision’s timing.
