The former Kentucky clerk who refused to issue a marriage license to a couple because they were gay must pay another $260,000 to the husband’s attorney now nearly 10 years after he denied them their right to marry.
Kim Davis must pay the attorney fees and expenses of the couple, David Ermold and David Moore, a federal judge ruled. That’s on top of the $100,000 a federal jury awarded the couple in September over its famous 2015 refusal.
Davis, a Republican, spent five days in jail for his denials which were held in contempt of court and was found guilty of violating the couple’s constitutional rights last year.
He served as Rowan County clerk at the time the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
Despite the court’s landmark ruling, he refused to issue two same-sex marriage licenses based on his own religious beliefs. Both spouses sued him.
Then a county clerk, Kim Davis, refused to issue two same-sex marriage licenses based on her own religious beliefs in 2015. AP
US District Judge David Bunning — the same judge who sentenced him to prison in 2015 — ruled that the former clerk must pay Ermold and Moore’s legal fees because they won the lawsuit against him.
“They sought to prove their right to marry and get a marriage license and they did,” Bunning said of the couple, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.
The couple is represented by Michael Gartland, with DelCotto Law Group in Lexington; Joseph Buckles, also a Lexington lawyer; and the Citizens Legal Group in Washington, DC.
“We got every last penny we asked for,” Gartland told local newspapers.
David Moore, second from right, and David Ermold, right, were awarded $100,000 in September in their lawsuit against Kim Davis. AP
Liberty Counsel, a religious freedom organization representing Davis, argued that the fee was excessive before the judge’s decision and plans to appeal it. If the motion is denied, the group said it would then appeal the case to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Last year, Bunning ruled that Davis “cannot use his own constitutional rights as a shield to infringe on the constitutional rights of others while performing his duties as an elected official.”
Davis, an evangelical Christian, said he believes marriage is only meant to be between a man and a woman. He spent five days criticizing what he claimed was a defense of his faith – while others accused him of homophobia – and was only released after his staff issued the couple a marriage license while removing his name from the document.
The case attracted widespread media attention and was even parodied on an episode of “Saturday Night Live.”
Davis spent five days in jail in 2015 for refusing to issue the couple a marriage license. AP
Davis was voted out of the clerkship in 2018.
With Postal wire
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
