It doesn’t seem to be relevant, since the judge determined that refusing to issue marriage licenses was breaking the law.
Thank you for your brilliant legal analysis. I was unaware that Kentucky’s legal requirements that official documents be signed were dependent upon your credit card signatures. Ignorance fought.
I think the obvious solution is that the current unsigned licenses will be signed by someone in the county. No big whoop. But I think the assumption that Kentucky’s requirement for an official signature can simply be ignored is a risky legal proposition.
Risky how? It’s not going to make a married couple “unmarried,” is it?
… only under the direction of the county clerk.
**tomndebb **provided the citation
Well, since a number of your assertions in this thread have been complete nonsense, I’m not taking anything you say at face value. Provide a cite that she is in fact a circuit court clerk, because in most states, court clerks and county clerks are two different offices. Maybe KY has some weird setup, but I’m certainly not going to take your “AFAIU” without backup.
And you fail to acknowledge that NO deputies have signed a license. When confronted with this fact, you resort to a completely irrelevant, though eminently fascinating, anecdotal speculation about your credit card signature.
That statute relates to clerks of court. The trial level courts in Kentucky are called “Circuit Courts,” and this statute refers to Judicial Personnel salaries schedules. Not the same thing as a country clerk, that accepts filings and issues marriage licenses.
I, …, do swear that I will well and truly discharge the duties of the office of … County Circuit Court clerk, according to the best of my skill and judgment,
Rowan County Circuit Court Clerk Kim Davis is now in jail for contempt of court and being held in contempt by the entire nation for refusing to follow the law and issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
One of four same-sex couples who sued Rowan County** Circuit Court Clerk** Kim Davis over her refusal to issue marriage licenses were the third couple to receive a marriage license on Friday afternoon.
Depending. In five years is one half of a couple, after an inheritance, going to argue, “We were never married; there is no marital property to divide.”?
I agree it is unlikely that anyone will challenge the validity of the licenses, except one of the parties on a license. If a married woman has a baby, then leaves her wife, is the validity of the marriage license an issue in determining who the parents are?
This isn’t that one episode of I Love Lucy. The marriage contract won’t be invalidated by a technicality. This has been cited many times.
Wait a second, Lucy and Ricky were a lesbian couple?
Her title seems “county clerk,” and not “circuit court clerk.” That seems to be a separate office under the purview of the courts.
Go to this page. The circuit court clerk for Rowan County appears to be someone named Jim Barker.
Over here on the Rowan County Clerk’s page, Davis’ title is given as “Rowan County Clerk” and not “circuit court clerk.”
Again, irrelevant, since the judge determined that refusing to issue the licenses violated the law.
Well of course not, not against the will of BOTH spouses. But if one is able to argue, “We always knew that license was invalid and CHOSE not to get a valid one,” does that argument have ANY legal weight, when coupled with a license that has a county name on the official signature line?
Clicked the citation there, and got a 404 error! (Chortle)
Here’s the correct link:
All you’re doing (assuming any of this is correct) is quibbling over which part of the previous law is now invalid in this case. The Supreme Court has ruled that these couple CAN get married. That is now the supreme law of the land. Any policy, practice, law, oath, or tradition that prevents this is a legal nullity now. If in this case it is the requirement that the forms be signed by a particular person, or by any person whatsoever, then in this case, that requirement is void. There is a principle of judicial minimalism that advises that a court only extend that to other cases where necessary, and that as much of the previous law as possible be preserved intact, but beyond that, a court has very broad discretion when it comes to protecting fundamental rights under the Constitution, especially when statutory law hasn’t had time to catch up with the Supreme Court.
Again, these couples CAN get married. They can do so in Rowan County. Any legal theory or argument that leads to a different outcome is invalid. If the only remaining legal theory is absurd, then the law is absurd until such time as the Kentucky state statutes can be changed to comply with the Constitution (as interpreted by the Supreme Court) or else the U.S. Constitution is amended.
WRONG! Try again.
Last I heard, Kentucky marriage licences were irrelevant to admission to Cuba, and more to the point, they are not valid for getting married in Cuba.
As far as signatures go, they too are irrelevant in the extant matter. The deputies had the authority to issue marriage licences, and they did issue marriage licences. Skipping one step in the process (the signature) does not invalidate the licenses. What counts is that they were duly issued. I challenge you to provide proof of your assertion to the contrary.
Most notably, the county clerk’s office has the ability and obligation to remedy the its own inconsequential defects when the licences are returned to them after execution of the marriage certificate portion by the officiant and witnesses. The remedy at that time is to simply accept the unsigned license and fully signed certificate and continue to process it as a validly issued license and validly completed certificate. Remember that the purpose of a signature is to prove that the document was indeed issued by an authorized person. Is there any doubt at all that these licenses were not issued under due authority? The proposition that they were not issued is laughable.
Knowingly and deliberately issuing a license with the intention of it being invalid for its purpose and thereby being injurious to the constitutional rights of the parties, and then knowing and deliberately refusing to correct the matter upon return of the document, would likely lead to both criminal charges and civil actions (see upthread for my cite re. criminal liability).