Breaking: Kim Davis Released

Ken AshfordBreaking News, Constitution, Courts/Law, Gay Marriage, Godstuff2 Comments

Details coming.

UPDATE – 1:00 pm:  The contempt order was lifted by a US district court judge.  Unclear if it was the same judge who gave the contempt order or if it was lifted on appeal.

UPDATE – 1:15 pm:  It was the same judge:

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that a Kentucky clerk who has refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples may leave prison — as long as she doesn’t interfere with the licenses that her deputies have been granting since her incarceration last week.

U.S. District Judge David Bunning ordered Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis released, and said that if she did not follow his guidance, “appropriate sanctions will be considered.”

Davis’ attorney, Mat Staver, told NBC News that accommodation was unlikely to suffice.

“We’re back to Square One,” Staver said. “She’s been released, but there’s been no resolution.”

Bunning’s order also requires the five deputy clerks in Rowan County to file status reports every 14 days detailing their compliance with his earlier orders that the office issue licenses to same-sex couples in accordance with a June U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

Davis, 49, has repeatedly defied the courts, saying that authorizing the licenses would violate her Christian beliefs. Arguing that her religious freedom is being compromised, she has asked state officials to develop alternative ways for the licenses to be issued without requiring her to authorize them.

Bunning ordered her jailed last Thursday, and she has become a national symbol of resistance to gay Christian supporters have rallied outside the lockup daily.

Mat Staver is a terrible lawyer.  Even Fox News calls him out for his stupidity:

[Fox News host Keith] Jarrett also called out Davis’s attorney [Mat Staver], who said it was “questionable” if the Supreme Court had the “constitutional authority” to rule on same-sex marriage.

“Whether the Supreme Court has constitutional authority?” the Fox News host said. “Article III Section 2 of the Constitution gives the Supreme Court constitutional authority to decide constitutional issues!”

Jarrett added that Staver’s statement appeared to be “stunningly obtuse.”

You may recall that prior to becoming a Fox News person, Keith Jarrett was THE main guy at Court TV for many many years.

Anyway, Staver is simply wrong when he says we are at square one.  Her clerks have been issuing the licenses, and will continue to do so.  In fact:

During proceedings on Thursday, Davis was offered to avoid jail if she allowed her deputies to issue the marriage licenses. She refused, and on Friday they began issuing them. The release order requires that Davis “shall not interfere in any way, directly or indirectly, with the efforts of her deputy clerks to issue marriage licenses to all legally eligible couples.” If she refuses — as she seemed to promise to do last week — she would again be held in contempt.

So basically, Davis caved.  She accepted an offer that she rejected last week.  Here’s the order:

Kentucky clerk Kim Davis ordered released from jail

UPDATE – 3:00 pm:  I suspect the lawyer is talking out of turn:

A CNN journalist at the jail reported that according to her attorneys, Davis “has not changed her mind” and intends to bring the licensing process to a halt all over again when she’s back on the job.

“The problem here is that the attorney says she has not changed her mind, that Kim Davis is adamant that as long as her name appears on those marriage licenses, she objects and she will attempt to stop those licenses from being distributed,” CNN correspondent Martin Savidge said during a live broadcast.

Well, if she “intends to bring the licensing process to a halt” then she is violating the terms of her release.  That would be VERY serious trouble for her.  Her lawyer can SAY this, but it’s easy for him to say since she will end up paying the cost.

So she’s out, and here she is with Ted Cruz and her husband, who is NOT playing Lenny in “Of Mice and Men” (that’s just the way he dresses):

UPDATE – 3:45 pm: Heaven help me….

Huckabee is on stage with her. Ted Cruz? Well, he had her picture with her (see above), but otherwise, his trip seems to be a bust.  Huckabee had staffers there a few days ago, and he has inserted himself there front and center.

Digby:

Kim Davis’ inane lawyer upon her release from jail:

“She can never recover the past six days of her life spent in an isolated jail cell.”Too bad she wasn’t free to just quit her job — the solution all the free-market wingnuts prescribe for every other complaint a worker might have against her employer. Oh wait, she was.