DOUBT: Walker shouldn't have judged case?

The federal judge who struck down California's ban on same-sex marriage should have disqualified himself because he is a gay man with a longtime partner and he could marry as a result of his ruling, sponsors of the ballot measure said in a court filing Monday, SF Chronicle reports.

Opening a new front in the battle over Proposition 8, its proponents said former Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker's recent comments about his 10-year relationship, which he had not disclosed during the trial, show that his "impartiality might reasonably have been questioned from the outset."

"No man can be a judge in his own case," said Charles Cooper, lawyer for the opponents of same-sex marriage. Because Walker has never disavowed the possibility that he will marry his partner, he had a "clear and direct stake in the outcome" of his own ruling, Cooper said.

He asked the San Francisco district's new chief judge, James Ware, who has inherited Walker's cases, to set aside the Aug. 4 decision declaring Prop. 8 unconstitutional. Cooper's clients, a religious coalition called Protect Marriage, are also appealing the ruling to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.