Kim Davis has the power to end her incarceration any time she desires to do so. All she has to do is agree to follow the orders of the court or resign her position as county clerk and she will no longer be in contempt of court. Her particular situation is very much not the norm for people currently incarcerated.
As to how to address the issue, well, while I would certainly agree that we incarcerate too many people here in the United States it does not follow that I always believe incarcerating people for non-violent crimes is wrong. I have no ethical or moral problems with incarcerating Kim Davis.
Very slight nitpick: although Davis can end her current incarceration at any moment, I believe that she’d still be prosecutable for her criminal actions. Following a jury trial, she could be imprisoned for years.
Agreed. Rikers Island is a perfect example of a “jail” that is part of the problem since the guards are notorious for abuse of prisoners without regard to whether the prisoners have been convicted of anything.
Ok so explain to this non-US observer. Kim Davis is a county level elected official but she can only be impeached by the State level legislature? why is there no county level council or board that can impeach her? It would (naively) make sense to me that you shouldn’t need to get the entire state government involved to remove a local county official from office.
Is there a set duration on that, say, five days, or is it until she agrees to comply? If it’s a duration, she can declare herself Queen of Muritania and she’s not getting out until the duration’s up.
The short answer? Because the Kentucky State Constitution expresslyprovides so (“The House of Representatives shall have the sole power of impeachment. . . . All impeachments shall be tried by the Senate”).
Historically, Americans have viewed the removal of elected officials (even at the county level) as a serious matter because it implies the reversal of the will of the people who elected the official. Requiring the State level legislature to be involved is one way to make this process more difficult.
Indeed so. It looks like another attempt to find an example of liberal hypocrisy, and is a great example of why I hold hypocrisy-hunts in such general disdain.
Under civil contempt, she can be held until she obeys the order, ceases to hold her office, or dies, but realistically, the court will not let it go on for too long. If it becomes apparent that incarceration will not coerce her into obeying the order, then the judge might let her out.
If the judge keeps her locked up despite it being obvious that coercion will not work, then the incarceration could be characterized as being punitive and the judge might apply sentencing guidelines appropriate for criminal contempt, for example, by applying the sentencing guidelines for something analogous (such as a class A misdemeanor for official misconduct in the first degree, which for a first timer would likely be only a few months).
If I were her god, I’d keep her locked up until she either obeyed the order or her term of office ran out near the start of 2019, despite it turning her into a Christian-Sharia law martyr. I figure that giving her a win by letting her out without her obeying the order would encourage copycats. But that’s just one’ insensitive asshole’s uninformed opinion, so take it with a grain of salt.
You might come across a limit of 18 months on media websites, but that applies to people refusing to testify, which is not the case with the clerk.
The judge just released Kim Davis without her changing her position. She just cannot interfere with the actions of her assistants who are issuing marriage licenses. That’s it.
Yeah - my understanding was she was jailed because she refused to agree to “not interfere.”
I’m really sick of so many public officials who get put on “paid administrative leave” during investigation of their misdeeds. I would have liked it if she had been fined an amount equal to the pay she received during the time she refused to do her legal duty - or at least the time she asked to go to jail instead of doing her job.
Non violent isn’t the same as victimless. Emblezzing money, tricking old people into signing very unfavourable deals, convincing people with serious disease to buy your snake oil rather than get actual treatment, white collar crimes, etc… are all non violent, but might be seriously offensive and deserve long prison time.
Besides, as already noted by other posters, officials should be exemplary.
Throw the book at her. Free some marijuana smokers or bicycles thief to make room for her if needed.
I recently confiscated a phone from a student. I spent five minutes working with her to put the phone and headphones away. Finally she did and I turn away and the phone is out again with music cranked up. She was practically begging me to take the phone away so I obliged her. So what was Davis expecting when she had so many chances to not go to jail and refused to take any of them?
What should the judge have done? Continue to let her flaunt the law? Give her a vacation on home arrest? Illegally remove her from office? Maybe who should be blamed besides Davis is the KY state legislature who could have quickly met and either changed the marriage license law so she didn’t have to sign it (a deputy clerk could sign with their own name) or impeach her and remove her from office.
Then you will need to blame the governor. He is the one with authority to call the legislature into special session. Davis asked him to call a special session. He refused.
Regardless of the issue of Davis not issuing marriage licenses, there are many laws that will need to be amended in light of the Supreme Court decision. Proponents of SSM have argued such when noting that there are hundreds of laws that marriage affects. IMHO perhaps both side of the debate should have pushed for a legislative session to address such issues once SCOTUS handed down its ruling.
Davis was jailed because the judge correctly assumed that her supporters would be able to raise enough money to make any fine meaningless. There’s no contradiction here. I’m still against a lot of non-violent jail time but usually because the law being broken has draconian measures. In this case, the law is just fine, and Davis is the one being draconian. Despite being non-violent, denying civil rights to someone is a bit more serious than smoking some harmless weed. She deserves jail until she can behave herself.
Don’t assume people who are against the overpopulation of jails to be against all non-violent offenders. I prefer rehab for a lot of people, decriminalization or sentence reduction for others. But there are definitely some non-violent crimes that deserve jail. This one, for instance.