In torts, I often discuss the collateral consequences for same-sex couples not having recognized marriages from intentional infliction of emotional distress claims (which are limited to close family members in seeking third-party claims) to spousal immunity claims. Kentucky last week demonstrated the problem for such couples with the opinion below. Bobbie Jo Clary (left) and her domestic partner, Geneva Case, claimed spousal immunity on the basis for a civil union in Vermont in 2004. However, Judge Susan Schultz Gibson ruled that they could not claim spousal immunity in a criminal case because they do not have a marriage recognized under Kentucky law. It is an example of the type of “full faith and credit” cases that could lead to a showdown before the Supreme Court. Normally, states are required to give full faith and credit to the contracts from other states, including out-of-town marriages.
Complicating this case is that the couple had only a civil union rather than an actual marriage. In the murder trial of Defendant Bobbie Jo Clary, the women claimed the right to be immune from testimony but the prosecutors opposed the claim. Clary is charged with the murder and robbery of George Murphy in 2011. Clary reportedly confessed to Case (shown right) that she beat Murphy to death with a hammer but said that she was defending herself from a rape.
Gibson found that the civil union had not been converted into a marriage and thus did not meet the threshold requirement of a privilege assertion:
“At a minimum, the privilege granted by the Commonwealth of Kentucky would require that the parties be actually married. Ms. Case and the Defendant are not, under the law of either Kentucky or Vermont. The fact that Vermont may extend the marital privilege to couples who have entered into a civil union does not require Kentucky to do so.”
Since the couple went to Vermont for a civil union and did not covert the relationship to a marriage, the ruling is likely to stand on appeal. In 2009, a marriage option was added to Vermont law. Because privileges are narrowly construed under state law, the judge felt obligated to deny the claim in this case.
However, the final line of the decision is the most interesting. Vermont appears to extend the protection to civil unions, but the court states that no state is required to adopt the statutes of other state when it conflicts with its own laws. It is not clear if that is a reference to the use of civil unions as the basis for testimonial privilege (which is the most direct interpretation) or more broadly the recognition of a marriage status for the same-sex couple (which has broader full faith and credit implications). The Court states that “at a minimum” the couple must have a marriage license to claim such a privilege.
I would expect the ruling to be upheld based on the narrow rationale of the difference between a civil union and a marriage under Kentucky law. However, this type of conflict is likely to create a new front in ongoing effort to establish protections for same-sex couples. In that struggle, a murder trial is hardly the ideal context for a definitive challenge. Accordingly, same-sex marriage advocates may prefer to see this case decided on the basis of the narrow interpretation of state law.
Here is the opinion: bobbijo
Only if you’ve read “Stranger In A Strange Land”, Slarti.
Gene,
Rhubarb is against my religion.
Blouise,
I’m pretty sure that it does.
Slarti,
I think the real question is why do I need a “strike out” and what does it mean? As for following Darren, no problem if I was able to follow the explanations, which I ‘m not.
Gene,
Shirley you grok that “grok” is a real word.
Mike,
Listen to Darren—his instructions show exactly what to type and what you will get.
^..^ * many,
Much better to give the Stooges cream pies than sledgehammers, don’t you think?
grok … I wonder if it’ll work in Scrabble
LK,
But, but, but . . . we all know pete will use his new great powers with great responsibility!
It will be in service of being responsible for funny, but responsible is responsible. He is a responsible artist. And art is art, isn’t it? Still, on the other hand, water is water! And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like apple sauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now, uh… now you tell me what you know. 😀
OMG! Now you’ve done it, you’ve empowered Pete, the bringer of wicked humor, with the strike-through command. The strike-through. That’s like giving The Three Stooges cream pies. 😉
Mike,
Most people think Michael is a biblical name of Hebrew origin meaning “he who is like God”, but it’s actually a much older name. It comes from Sumer and means “he who does not grok the abacus”. Just so, the name “Larry” is often thought to derive from the Latin Laurentum (one who wears a laurel wreath) actually, it’s Egyptian and means “geometry is Set [roughly the Devil]”.
True story. 😀
Okay.
Not technically all true.
But all the words are real words.
Mostly.
Except for “grok”.
I blame Robert Heinlein and having too much sugar today.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Gene,
Grok you. I much preferred “Starship Trooper” and especially loved “Door into Summer”, but then Pynchon floated my boat back then, as did Vonnegut and so it goes. Anyhow I’m not math challenged like Larry, it’s just like my computer Literacy got overtaken at the end of the last century.
Blouise,
The words you use in Scrabble are potent enough that you don’t need even more.
Slarti,
It depends on the deal vis a vis immunity. It can be absolute or qualified. The prosecution has a fair amount of discretion on what they can offer. Rarely is it absolute though. You’d have to be bringing something huge to the table. It’s usually transactional and may be only partial.
pete,
What they said.
If you want to make angle brackets show up you have to encode it.
To create “less than” you type in < to make <
To create a “Greater Than” you type in > to make >
Be sure to remember the semicolon ( ; ) at the end.
<strike>strike-out-text</strike> ==
strike-out-text<b>bolded</b> == bolded
<i>Italics</i> == Italics
cool, the stuff you can learn if you stay up late enough
Slarti?WordPress outsmarted me and took out the spaces I put in the code. Try the instruction at the link
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070605210600AAoev62
OS,
Anything bracketed by greater than and less than gets interpreted as an html tag by WordPress. It’s kind of annoying sometimes…
I guess it does, but the rest of my comment should read with “[” replaced with the less than symbol and “]” replaced with the greater than symbol.
Pete,
You use [strike]
Stricken stuff[/strike] with “[” and “]” replaced with “”, but I don’t know if it works here…Why is it that I don’t understand how to do anyone’s instructions. In other words what the hell are you all talking about? Is it something about the name Mike that makes a person technologically backward? Did you understand those instructions Pete? Yet I can use at least one emoticon. 🙂
Type this except take out the spaces between the command and brackets:
Peteand you will get thisPeteGene
while we are on the subject of technologically impaired, how do you type a word and then draw a line through it?