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She was sent to jail because the judge felt that a fine (which would be paid via gofundme or similar donation services) would not actually address the issue. Judges aren't required to fine instead of jail, it's simply an option.

 Psienesis wrote:
She was sent to jail because the judge felt that a fine (which would be paid via gofundme or similar donation services) would not actually address the issue. Judges aren't required to fine instead of jail, it's simply an option.

-Why not an injunction against her interfering with other employees issuing licenses?
-Send the existing marriage law back to the legislature to fix.
-Some that i can think of. I am not necessarily against the jail, but this now looks bad, looks vindictive.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
She was sent to jail because the judge felt that a fine (which would be paid via gofundme or similar donation services) would not actually address the issue. Judges aren't required to fine instead of jail, it's simply an option.

-Why not an injunction against her interfering with other employees issuing licenses?
-Send the existing marriage law back to the legislature to fix.
-Some that i can think of. I am not necessarily against the jail, but this now looks bad, looks vindictive.

He already ordered her to issue then in accordance with her job, a ruling that the SCOTUS upheld. I don't think a judge has to go "you know what, never mind, don't do your job" and take a previous ruling back after SCOTUS days "ditto" to the original ruling.

Then why was she released?

 Frazzled wrote:
Then why was she released?

No clue, but I'd bet that she'll still refuse to issue the licenses.

If so... expect her back in the slammer.

Not sure why he released her, though I was reading it was in part to attempt to diffuse a protest that was going to happen later

 Frazzled wrote:
Then why was she released?

Maybe because he feels like there is now a process in place that is working: issuing licenses without her signature and involvement by the clerks. If she can go without screwing up that process she should be fine.

 Frazzled wrote:
Then why was she released?

Because the clerk's office is now issuing licenses like it was supposed to be doing, in compliance with the court's order. Which it was not, and would not do while she was there.

So now that the clerk's office is doing it's job, and if she doesn't interfere to make it stop again, there's no need to find her in contempt of the order.

The fact is, Davis had MULTIPLE other possible solutions to her conumdrum, if she was actually acting in good faith, but it was here decision to go straight to the nuclear option that got her thrown in jail.

The fact is, Davis had MULTIPLE other possible solutions to her conumdrum, if she was actually acting in good faith, but it was here decision to go straight to the nuclear option that got her thrown in jail.

Agreed.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
She was sent to jail because the judge felt that a fine (which would be paid via gofundme or similar donation services) would not actually address the issue. Judges aren't required to fine instead of jail, it's simply an option.

-Why not an injunction against her interfering with other employees issuing licenses?
-Send the existing marriage law back to the legislature to fix.
-Some that i can think of. I am not necessarily against the jail, but this now looks bad, looks vindictive.

If you read the whole article, Kentuckian law already provides for her to claim a religious exception from putting her name on marriage licences, but she hasn't taken the course of invoking this state law and instead has involved herself with the Federal courts. I understand also that she prevented her deputies from issuing licences as well.

In other words, her stance is not one of protecting her personal religious freedom and beliefs, it is one of preventing gay people from marrying.

She would not have involved the federal court-the plaintiffs would have.

She involved them by refusing to obey federal law and failing to apply to state law for an available remedy.

 Frazzled wrote:
Except contempt rarely sends you to jail in this context.

When you go around spouting how you are morally superior for ignoring the ruling that does tend to hack off a judge a bit more than if you were just slacking off a bit in complying. Add the publicity and I'd have been surprised if nothing like this had happened.
That's the thing: when you around announcing the courts can go feth themselves you're going to be made an example of pretty much every time.

I'm sure you're right that someone who just doesn't bother to obey won't generally get himself shoved behind bars (not terribly quickly anyway), but that is just not what happened here. Not the same case *at all*.

I am especially amused by the crowd of ignorant savages gathering around the house of the judge to find him "in contempt of God's court" (their words) when, in fact, Jesus told them to obey the law of the land.

Kim Davis? Had her way to uphold her religious views, but decided not to take it. Jesus never said that following Him was going to be easy... but she's unwilling to give up that sweet, sweet government salary and pension. She, further, attempted to to force other people to follow her religion as a representative of the secular government of the State of Kentucky.

As the Bible says, the governments of the land are placed there by God. Perhaps she should consider the possibility that God doesn't really give a feth about gay marriage? There's plenty of Unitarian and Methodist congregations that welcome people of all walks, all colors, all sorts of people, that have spoken out in opposition to what Davis has tried doing, and this not to mention groups like the Church of Universal Life.

This whole ordeal is proof that Mike Huckabee never misses an opportunity to pal around with a horrible person.


Also, watching about five seconds of Davis' release rally/party has made me never want to watch Rocky III again.

 d-usa wrote:
Didn't the judge state that fines wouldn't work because he was aware that other people would just pay the fine for her?

Couldn't the same be said for any fine as a sentence?

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Didn't the judge state that fines wouldn't work because he was aware that other people would just pay the fine for her?

Couldn't the same be said for any fine as a sentence?

It probably could, but I think we had a high profile event here were it was pretty obvious that someone other than her would be bankrolling the fines.

Interestingly enough, some countries take your ability to pay a fine into account and are able to issue higher fines just because someone is richer. That way even a rich person "feels" the impact the same way a regular Joe would.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Couldn't the same be said for any fine as a sentence?

Sure it could be said of any fine, but most fines wouldn't have a realistic chance of being paid by strangers, whereas there are many misguided people willing to back someone as foolish as Kim. Most issues aren't raised to a national level either, but then it takes a special someone to simultaneously make Christians and government employees look like idiots.

 d-usa wrote:
It probably could, but I think we had a high profile event here were it was pretty obvious that someone other than her would be bankrolling the fines.

Why should the profile of the case matter? If Person A has fallen on hard times and Person B pays the fine to help them (especially given the current for profit criminal justice system which is stacked against the less well off) should Person A be jailed instead because someone else is paying the fine?

 d-usa wrote:
Interestingly enough, some countries take your ability to pay a fine into account and are able to issue higher fines just because someone is richer. That way even a rich person "feels" the impact the same way a regular Joe would.

Which would have been immaterial here as any fine (which would have potentially been paid by a 3rd party) would have been assessed against her income

A fine, despite increasing use as a revenue source by many areas, has nothing to do with the court getting paid. The fine is supposed to hurt the person who is fined, that is the purpose of the punishment. If you know a particular punishment will not work as it is designed to do, because it won't hurt that person, then you choose a different option.

 d-usa wrote:
A fine, despite increasing use as a revenue source by many areas, has nothing to do with the court getting paid. The fine is supposed to hurt the person who is fined, that is the purpose of the punishment. If you know a particular punishment will not work as it is designed to do, because it won't hurt that person, then you choose a different option.

At least a conservative judge has the cajones to throw her ass in jail...

Unlike a certain political body over an ex-Attorney General who was (and currently?) held in contempt.

 d-usa wrote:
A fine, despite increasing use as a revenue source by many areas, has nothing to do with the court getting paid. The fine is supposed to hurt the person who is fined, that is the purpose of the punishment. If you know a particular punishment will not work as it is designed to do, because it won't hurt that person, then you choose a different option.

But that still does not take account of Good Samaritans. If Person A has fallen on hard times and Person B pays the fine to help them (especially given the current for profit criminal justice system which is stacked against the less well off) should Person A be jailed instead because someone else is paying the fine?

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
A fine, despite increasing use as a revenue source by many areas, has nothing to do with the court getting paid. The fine is supposed to hurt the person who is fined, that is the purpose of the punishment. If you know a particular punishment will not work as it is designed to do, because it won't hurt that person, then you choose a different option.

But that still does not take account of Good Samaritans. If Person A has fallen on hard times and Person B pays the fine to help them (especially given the current for profit criminal justice system which is stacked against the less well off) should Person A be jailed instead because someone else is paying the fine?

None of this really has anything to do with why she wasn't fined.

I think I said it a couple pages back, but the reason why a fine wouldn't work in this case has nothing to do with if she, or anyone else would pay it. The whole point was to compel her to actually do her job, like the court told her she had to. If she'd be fined, whether she or anyone else paid it or not, she would've been able to go to work and keep on not doing her job the same as before. Jailing her for contempt instead of fining her allowed the clerk's office to start doing what it was supposed to again.

And just to add to the hilarity of this whole sideshow, it looks like when both Ted Cruze and Mike Huckabee showed up at her release, one of Huckabee's aides cock-blocked Cruz so that the Huckster could get the camera spotlight.

Keep it classy, boys!

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Didn't the judge state that fines wouldn't work because he was aware that other people would just pay the fine for her?

Couldn't the same be said for any fine as a sentence?

Most people don't have the backing of thousands of people across the nation to come up with, say, $45,000 in fines and legal fees for them.

So, while such a thing *could* be said for all fines, in most cases it would be an untruth.

How may activist groups raise funds (and have funds set aside specifically) to pay off fines and bail when selected members get 'arrested for the cause' while protesting ?

Folks get their fines paid all the time, from big to small. In families with only one spouse with a job, does that spouse pay the other's fines? How many parents pay their kids' parking or speeding tickets?

How or from whom she raises the money is irrelevant. The point is, it was clear a fine would not have had the intended effect. She refused to comply with a lawful court order, she ran out of appeals, and she still refused to comply and would not agree to not prevent other people from complying, either. The reason she was jailed was to coerce her to obey the law. If a fine is levied and it's paid by others, over and over again, there is no coercive value. This seems pretty straightforward.

She's not the victim here. She's not a martyr. She's George Wallace in the schoolhouse door.

 Ouze wrote:
The point is, it was clear a fine would not have had the intended effect. She refused to comply with a lawful court order, she ran out of appeals, and she still refused to comply and would not agree to not prevent other people from complying, either. The reason she was jailed was to coerce her to obey the law. If a fine is levied and it's paid by others, over and over again, there is no coercive value. This seems pretty straightforward.

This sums it up nicely.

The court didn't impose a criminal penalty, where she was being punished after being found guilty for breaking a law. Contempt is used to compel compliance with (lawful) court orders; in this case, she got a LOT of bites at the apple, as every level of the Federal court system had a chance to weigh in.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
A fine, despite increasing use as a revenue source by many areas, has nothing to do with the court getting paid. The fine is supposed to hurt the person who is fined, that is the purpose of the punishment. If you know a particular punishment will not work as it is designed to do, because it won't hurt that person, then you choose a different option.

But that still does not take account of Good Samaritans. If Person A has fallen on hard times and Person B pays the fine to help them (especially given the current for profit criminal justice system which is stacked against the less well off) should Person A be jailed instead because someone else is paying the fine?

Every case is judged on its merits.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
She involved them by refusing to obey federal law and failing to apply to state law for an available remedy.

Again, what federal law did she break? You won't find one.


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 Ahtman wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Couldn't the same be said for any fine as a sentence?

Sure it could be said of any fine, but most fines wouldn't have a realistic chance of being paid by strangers, whereas there are many misguided people willing to back someone as foolish as Kim. Most issues aren't raised to a national level either, but then it takes a special someone to simultaneously make Christians and government employees look like idiots.

You people aren't thinking big enough. The Judge could have fined her (best Dr. Evil voice) Two Gazillion Dollars. Crowdfund that!

 Frazzled wrote:


You people aren't thinking big enough. The Judge could have fined her (best Dr. Evil voice) Two Gazillion Dollars. Crowdfund that!

Nope. Charges all have minimum and maximum sentencing, usually with alternative jail and or monetary amounts; my guess here is that contempt in her state just has a max dollar amount of several thousand dollars.

The judge had to jail her because she was actively prohibiting people from doing their jobs while she was willfully ignoring court orders to do her own. Once she was out of the picture, the momentum of work exceeded her non-work so if she goes back now and tries to stop everything, she goes from martyr to bad guy.