That's interesting. I totally see this as a valid argument (and I don't disagree that this might be politically motivated on the judge's part). However, it seems to me that

>any clear conviction that the law was unconstitutional

is the wrong way of going about it. I would think you'd want to be pretty darn sure that the actions you were carrying out were constitutional before doing them. That is, I'd much rather people not enforce a law that might be unconstitutional, but isn't, than enforce a law that is unconstitutional. Err on the side of caution.