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Transcripts for CNN Anderson Cooper 360 20130328 02:03:00

Said it went beautifully and her late spouse would be pleased. today is a spectacular event for me. i mean, a lifetime kind of event. and i know that the spirit of my late spouse is right here watching and listening and would be very proud and happy where we ve come to. today s case came just a day after oral arguments on california s proposition eight. justices both liberal and conservative seemed reluctant to use it as the basis for sweeping national change. this case on the other hand could be just the opposite. jeffrey toobin was inside the court again today. he joins us from outside the court. so we know everything comes with the caveat that the supreme court can surprise us and is hard to predict. you say that doma is in trouble. that a majority of justices seem inclined to throw it out? why is that? reporter: because of what anthony kennedy said. ....

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Transcripts for CNN Anderson Cooper 360 20130328 00:07:00

. reporter: well, because by and large, and this is true on both sides of the ideological divide, believe that it s sort of a last resort for the unelected, unaccountable supreme court to preempt the democratic branches of government. by and large, they want to let the democratic processes go forward. and they only want to step in if there is absolutely no doubt that a law violates the constitution. so that rhetoric of sort of letting the democratic process go forward is something you hear a lot in the supreme court. you heard it today. but also you heard donald verrilli, solicitor general, saying, sure, the democratic process is fine. but when it violates people s rights, this is when the justices have to step in. four justices seem quite willing to step in. the four democratic appointees. they didn t seem to have a fifth vote on that issue, but they probably had a fifth on the issue of states rights. jeff, stay with us. ....

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Transcripts for CNN Anderson Cooper 360 20130328 02:06:00

This country. and the tide of a public opinion seems to be shifting and unmistakable. if someone s unconstitutional. this was the thing that i thought was so interesting. we talked so much about how public opinion has changed. but it was the conservatives on the court who kept raising the issue of public opinion. john roberts did it again today. he said, look, you are making all kinds of progress state by state. why do you want us to get involved? why should the supreme court get involved when this is a live political issue, you re making all kinds of progress, and, of course, the challenges to the defense of marriage act just like the challenges to proposition 8 said this is why we have a supreme court to decide what s constitutional and what s not? that was the tension that was on display both days. why would they not want to rule. is it just politics? is it? why wouldn t they want to ....

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Transcripts for CNN Anderson Cooper 360 20130328 02:17:00

follow me on twitter right now, what do you think of the arguments? what do you think the court is going to do. we re going to take you to the shakiest piece of land in the country right now. cliffside property minus a chunk of the cliff. a home literally on the edge of disaster. no one can really understand. the southern california killer ex-cop. a million dollar award for getting chris dorner. why are the people who helped get him not getting the money? ....

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Transcripts for CNN Anderson Cooper 360 20130328 05:04:00

Vote? well, anthony kennedy is the only real likely possibility, but repeatedly during the oral arguments today, he expressed what appeared to be his view that the defense of marriage act violated state s rights. he did not talk about that it violated the rights of gay people. he said that it it violates the state s ability to regulate and create the laws of marriage. and he said it over and over again. and that is a winning argument for the defense of marriage act critics of edith windsor and company. well, chief justice john roberts was critical of how president obama was handling doma, they re not defending the law in court but still enforcing it. here is part of what the chief justice said, i want to play that. i don t see why he doesn t have the courage of his convictions and execute not only the statute, but do it consistent with his view of the constitution, rather than saying ....

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