The case was filed in May 2009 in the Federal District Court for Northern California and was assigned to the court's Chief Judge, Vaughn R. Walker, who was appointed to the bench by President George H. W. Bush in 1989.

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The trial began on January 11, 2010. Because Governor Schwarzenegger and California Attorney General Jerry Brown declined to defend Proposition 8, with Brown declaring that he considered Proposition 8 unconstitutional, the ban on same-sex marriage was defended by the proponents of Proposition 8, led by chief counsel Charles Cooper.

In the course of the trial, which spanned twelve days in January and two days in June 2010, Olson and Boies systematically built their case around the history of marriage, the harm that denial of marriage rights does to gay and lesbian couples and their children, and the irrationality of the ban. Introducing a massive amount of evidence, they demonstrated that the ban was enacted out of animus against homosexuals and that it causes great harm to gay men and lesbians for no rational governmental purpose.

The defense was stymied by the fact that they were unable to argue against same-sex marriage on religious grounds or on the inferiority of homosexuals, since such arguments would not be admissible as appropriate governmental reasons for denying a fundamental right. Instead, they were reduced to arguing that the only purpose of marriage is procreation and that permitting same-sex couples to marry would in some unspecified way contribute to the "deinstitutionalization" of marriage.

On August 4, 2010, Judge Walker issued his decision. His 136-page opinion demolished the credibility of the defendants' witnesses, systematically outlined 80 findings of facts established by the plaintiffs, and concluded unambiguously that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

Judge Walker declared that "the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional."

Judge Walker endorsed the contention of Olson and Boies that the ban on same-sex marriage violates the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

In reaching this conclusion, he found that, although sexual orientation is entitled to heightened scrutiny, Proposition 8 fails to survive even rational basis review. He further found that the ban discriminates on the basis of sex as well as sexual orientation. He described domestic partnerships as a "substitute and inferior institution."

Judge Walker emphatically rejected the defendants' argument that the purpose of marriage is procreation, observing that "states have never required spouses to have an ability or willingness to procreate in order to marry."

He described the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage "as an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having distinct roles in society and in marriage," and declared, "That time has passed."

The judge dismissed the idea that a referendum of voters is somehow sacrosanct. The referendum's outcome was "irrelevant," he said, because "fundamental rights may not be submitted to a vote."