Etiqueta: kim davis

Kim Davis and the law: Q&A in clerk standoff

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Q. Why hasn’t Kim Davis been fired for refusing to issue marriage licenses and defying court orders?

A. She is an elected official and can only be removed from office for impeachment.

How would she be impeached?

The Kentucky House of Representatives would have to charge her with an impeachable offense and the Senate would then try her.

Is that likely?

The Kentucky Equality Federation, a gay rights group, has called for Gov. Steve Beshear to call a special session of the General Assembly to pursue impeachment. But Beshear, citing costs, has already declined to convene a special session to consider emergency legislation that would accommodate Davis and other clerks by having state government issue marriage licenses. Also, Bluegrass Polls show most Kentucky voters oppose gay marriage and support accommodating Davis.

“The legislature has placed the authority to issue marriage licenses squarely on county clerks by statute, and I have no legal authority to relieve her of her statutory duty by executive order or to remove her from office,” Beshear said in a statement Tuesday.

Can Davis be charged with a crime?

After being denied a license four times, a gay couple has asked the Rowan County attorney to charge her with official misconduct, a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail. But citing a conflict of interest — he is defending the county in suits naming Davis — he referred the request to the attorney general’s office, which is deciding whether to appoint a special prosecutor.

What happens next?

The two gay and straight couples who sued Davis have asked U.S. District Judge David Bunning to find her in contempt of court. A hearing is set for 11 a.m. Thursday in Ashland.

What punishment could she get for that?

Bunning could jail or fine her, but the plaintiffs are seeking only monetary penalties, apparently to avoid engendering sympathy for her in jail. Bunning could order her to pay the fines out of her own pocket, rather than with taxpaper money.

Does Davis have any options left?

She can still pursue her appeal in the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, but her bids to delay compliance ran out on Monday night when the Supreme Court denied her a stay.

Could local officials try to remove her?

Kentucky law allows a commonwealth’s attorney to indict county judges-executives, justices of the peace, sheriffs, coroners, surveyors, jailers, county attorneys and constables for malfeasance in office or willful neglect in the discharge of official duties, for which they can be fined up to $1,000 and removed from office upon conviction. But for some reason lost to history, the statute doesn’t include county clerks.

What are Davis’ grounds for refusing to comply with court orders?

She says that to issue a marriage license to same-sex couples, on which her name would be signed, conflicts with God’s definition of marriage and would violate her conscience. She says her religious liberty should be protected under the Kentucky and U.S. Constitutions and the Kentucky Religious Freedom Act.

Sources: Kentucky Constitution and KRS. University of Kentucky law professors Allison Connelly and Scott Bauries.

In: courierjournal

Kim Davis Ordered Jailed in Kentucky Gay Marriage Dispute

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Kim Davis, the clerk of Rowan County in Kentucky, after refusing to grant a marriage certificate to Robbie Blankenship and Jesse Cruz on Wednesday. Credit Ty Wright/Getty Images

Kim Davis, the clerk of Rowan County in Kentucky, after refusing to grant a marriage certificate to Robbie Blankenship and Jesse Cruz on Wednesday. Credit Ty Wright/Getty Images

ASHLAND, Ky. — A federal judge here on Thursday ordered a Kentucky clerk jailed for contempt of court because of her refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

The clerk, Kim Davis of Rowan County, was ordered incarcerated after a hearing here before Judge David L. Bunning of Federal District Court. The contempt finding was another legal defeat for Ms. Davis, who has argued that she should not be forced to issue licenses that conflict with her religious beliefs.

“The court cannot condone the willful disobedience of its lawfully issued order,” Judge Bunning said. “If you give people the opportunity to choose which orders they follow, that’s what potentially causes problems.”

David L. Bunning. Image: enquirer.com

Judge David L. Bunning. Image: enquirer.com

Judge Bunning said Ms. Davis would be released once she agreed to comply with his order and issue the marriage licenses.

On Monday, the Supreme Court turned down Ms. Davis’s appeal of an Aug. 12 ruling by Judge Bunning directing her to issue marriage licenses. The justices’ decision was expected to clear the way for same-sex marriages in Rowan County. But on Tuesday, the clerk and her employees again refused to issue licenses in Morehead, the seat of Rowan County.

Within hours lawyers for the couples who had initially sued Ms. Davis asked Judge Bunning to hold her in contempt. “Because Davis cannot show either that she is unable to comply with the Aug. 12, 2015, order or that she has taken all reasonable steps to comply,” the lawyers wrote, “this court is left with no choice but to hold her in contempt.”

The lawyers, who argued that Ms. Davis “continues to collect compensation from the Commonwealth for duties she fails to perform,” asked Judge Bunning to fine the clerk, but not to jail her.

On Wednesday, when Ms. Davis again turned down a gay couple’s request for a license, the clerk’s lawyers argued that she should not be held in contempt, in part because it would breach her right to due process. They asked Judge Bunning to grant an injunction pending another appeal.

Supporters and opponents of Ms. Davis gathered outside the federal courthouse here hours before she was due to appear. One man waved a rainbow flag — a symbol of the gay rights movement — while another clutched a flag that said, “Liberty.”

“We’re supporters of the rule of the law,” said David Wills, a computer programmer from West Virginia who was first in line and said he had arrived at 4 a.m. for a hearing scheduled to begin seven hours later. “It’s just really important to me that people be treated equally, fairly.”

Ms. Davis’s supporters, prepared with an ice chest filled with water, also gathered ahead of a hearing they called critical to protecting religious liberty in Kentucky and elsewhere.

“They’re taking rights away from Christians,” Danny Kinder, a 73-year-old retiree from Morehead, said of the courts. “They’ve overstepped their bounds.”

He declined to predict the outcome of Thursday’s hearing and what would happen to Ms. Davis.

“I’ve been praying about it, and we just have to turn it over to the Lord,” he said. “She has got to stand for what she believes, and I have to stand for what I believe, and I’m behind her 100 percent.”

In: nytimes

Puede interesarle: Judge Bunning takes bench

USA same sex marriage: Kim Davis, Kentucky Clerk, Held in Contempt and Ordered to Jail

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Image: gannett-cdn.com

Image: gannett-cdn.com

Image: nydailynews

Image: nydailynews

A federal judge has ordered a Kentucky clerk to jail after she refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Kim Davis, a clerk in Rowan County, was found in contempt of court on Thursday morning. She has said granting marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples would “violate God’s definition of marriage” and infringe on her personal beliefs as an Apostolic Christian.

Davis, in tears, said on the stand that she could not comply with the judge’s order. U.S. Marshals later took her into custody.

“Thank you, judge,” Davis said as she was being led out.

District Court Judge David Bunning has said Davis is bound by an oath of office to perform her duties under the law, and ordered that she be jailed until she complied with his order to grant licenses.

Bunning has upheld the Supreme Court’s decision in June to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide, and wrote last month after the contempt lawsuit was filed that the state is merely forcing her to do her job within the law.

Before the hearing, dozens of protesters on both side of the issue clashed outside of the federal courthouse in Covington, some in support of Davis for standing up for her beliefs.

While clerks in other states have made similar refusals, Davis’ defiance is the most prominent — leading GOP presidential candidates to weigh in and casting a spotlight on her personal life, too.

It was revealed this week that she was divorced three times and had children out of wedlock before a religious awakening became a turning point in her life.

Davis, a registered Democrat, had worked as a deputy clerk for 27 years before voters in Rowan County elected her as clerk last November.

As an elected official, she can only be removed in a vote by state legislators, who don’t reconvene in the State House until January.

Despite her political leanings, she’s likely to get much support from Republicans lawmakers.

In: nbcnews

“Under God’s authority”: The case of clerk Kim Davis

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meme secular state

Not for winning or being appointed in clerk position, this will belong to her and, from that post, she can decide who deserves a service and who does not. The exercise of public service is not about choices (It’s Not About what you believe) because is a duty, and she can´t have that discriminatory behavior against any person in relation with the goods and services that the state provides to its citizens.

Public service is mandatory for all civil servant. Public administration and the civil service is characterized by the objectivity and impartiality that is embodied in the fact prevent personal or individual elements affect the civil servant criteria when making decisions.

Public and civil servants must be objective in the line of duty. It’s like saying “think with reason and not so much with the heart”. It’s like going to a restaurant and the customer orders to the waiter “I would like to order biscuits ’n’ gravy” and the waiter answers to the consumer “sorry I don’t like biscuits ’n’ gravy, so you don’t deserve it, too”.

Finally, rule of law is a principle in public administration and because of that she can´t deny the marriage service even more if the SCOTUS ruled the same sex marriage as a right nationwide. The public servants develops their duties inside a secular state.

arturodiazf

See: The Kentucky clerk who won’t issue marriage licences, and all her deputy clerks have been called to appear at a federal court hearing

SCOTUS: Kentucky clerk must issue same-sex marriage licenses

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KENTUCKY — The Supreme Court on Monday night, August 31st denied an emergency application from a Kentucky clerk who has been refusing to issue marriage licenses because of her religious objections to same-sex marriage.

Image: CNN

Image: CNN

The clerk, Kim Davis, sought to put a lower court ruling on hold pending appeal, and in a one-page order the Supreme Court refused.

Davis is now faced with a lower court order that her office begin issuing licenses effective Monday.

The order marks the first time the issue of same-sex marriage has come back to the justices since they issued an opinion last June clearing the way for same-sex couples to marry nationwide.

Davis, of the Rowan County Clerk’s office, has refused to issue any marriage licenses since the decision — Obergefell v. Hodges — came down. She is an Apostolic Christian who says that she has a sincere religious objection to same-sex marriage. Other clerks in the state have expressed concern, but Davis is the only one turning away eligible couples.

In Court papers, lawyers for Davis said that her “conscience forbids her from approving a (same-sex marriage) license — because the prescribed form mandates that she authorize the proposed union and issue a license bearing her own name and imprimatur.”

“In her belief,” the lawyers wrote, “(same-sex marriage) is not, in fact, marriage.”

They said issuing a same-sex license would amount to a “searing act of validation” that would “forever echo in her conscience.”

En: fox6now