The attorneys who defended Proposition 8, the ill-fated 2008 ballot initiative that barred same-sex marriage in California, are pressing a federal court to block the public release of the video recording of the landmark 2010 trial that concluded the ban was unconstitutional.

Charles Cooper, founding member of the Washington litigation boutique Cooper & Kirk, argued in a motion filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California that then- U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn Walker assured attorneys during the trial that he was only allowing a video of the proceedings so he could review them in chambers while he crafted a decision.

In 2018, U.S. District Judge William Orrick of the Northern District of California ordered the recordings to remain sealed until Aug. 12, a decade after Walker declared the same-sex marriage initiative unconstitutional, unless the defenders of the ban could offer "compelling reasons" for the video to stay private.