Series of court filings from In re Balas & Morales, the California case in which twenty bankruptcy judges jointly signed an opinion striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as unconstitutional to the extent it barred lawfully married same-sex couples from filing joint bankruptcy petitions.

This is the U.S. Trustee's election to have the appeal heard by a federal district judge, rather than the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel. The practical import of this election is that any ruling on the appeal would not be binding on anyone else, at least at this stage. This led the debtors to seek certification of the appeal to the Ninth Circuit.