In Zoeller’s Defense
Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller has caught a lot of grief over the last few months for defending Indiana’s marriage statute. Because he defended the statute which defined marriage as one man and one woman, some people think his motivation was that he was opposed to same-sex marriage.
In all the time I written about the Attorney General’s office defense of the marriage statute, I never asked Zoeller what his opinion was, because to be frank it didn’t matter. He is an attorney and the State of Indiana is his client and absent some bizarre circumstances, the Attorney General has a duty to defend the law, regardless of what he thinks about it.
And just like he carried out his obligation to defend the prior marriage statute, guess what, Zoeller will defend the new law which says same-sex marriage is legal in Indiana. He’s already instructed the County Clerks to start issuing marriage licenses. I am willing to bet money his office has been going through volumes of Indiana Code as it applies to marriage to inform lawmakers how the new rules will apply to same-sex couples, because that is what the Attorney General does.
As lawyers, we have a duty to defend our clients within all ethical bounds. When we start picking and choosing which cases we will and won’t do simply because we have a different ideological bent than the client, we start to run into problems. I would argue it would be ground for malpractice if he didn’t.
When Zoeller defended the state’s marriage statute, he was doing his job and now that there is new statute, guess what, he will keep doing his job.
