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« CRPA's new program | Main | Self-defense arrest in NYC »

Dr. Timothy Emerson update

Posted by David Hardy · 16 April 2006 07:59 PM

Just got an email update on Dr. Timothy Emerson, defendant in Emerson v. US. Rather depressing Easter news.

Emerson had discovered his wife was having an affair, and they separated. The wife claimed he'd threatened her significant other (emphasis on other) and maybe herself, and got a restraining order. Depending upon the jurisdiction, those may require a bit of judicial inquiry, or may be issued out of hand (the judge feeling "what's the harm to forbidding someone to cause harm?"). She later barged into his office and claimed he'd threatened her with a pistol. (He was acquitted of that). But the Feds charged him with possession of a firearm while subject to a DV restraining order, under the Lautenberg Amendment, a federal felony. He challenged it, the Fifth Circuit ruled that the Second Amendment is an individual right, but also that the statute survived (altho it said barely survived) the challenge, as a reasonable regulation, etc., etc.

The email informs that Dr. Emerson served two and half years in Federal incarceration and is now on supervised release (parole under another name). Shortly after his release his father died and his mother had to go into a nursing home.

His ex-wife got exclusive custory of their daughter. He's seen his daughter for about an hour over the last five years. His ex is suing him for $71,000 in child support, which he wasn't able to pay since he was earning a few cents an hour in prison. As a result of the unpaid support (deadbeat dad laws) he's lost his license to practice medicine and his driver's license, which means zero chance of paying the support, or regaining his licenses, in this lifetime. He tried for disability but ... is not disabled, just unable to practice or drive to other work.

Comments

Once again, when you go into the divorce court with two balls you have two strikes against you. Equal justice under the law does not apply here. After a restrianing order is requested by a woman, real or otherwise, one is immediately guilty.

The courtroom is a place where justice is dispensed with. And, 99% of all lawyers give the rest a bad name. Been there, done that.

Posted by: Roger .45 at April 16, 2006 08:59 PM

Crap like this makes me think the bachelor life isn't really so bad after all.

Posted by: Sebastian at April 16, 2006 09:03 PM

Once again, when you go into the divorce court with two balls you have two strikes against you.

Your baseball analogy confuses me. Wouldn't that make you two and two?

Posted by: King of the Cows at April 17, 2006 08:28 AM

What a nightmare.

Unintended consequences of Lautenberg's crap?

But maybe it was all intended from the start: to inconvienience the public in the worst possible way so they stay away from firearms.

A story like this makes waves and makes me think twice about my guns: are they more important then my daughter growing up withouth a father? Although I'd like to think that it's a slim possiblity the potential for martial infidelity exists regardless of the current state of any relationship. Could it lead to violence on my part? I don't know.

Good argument against registration: if they know that you have it you can automatically be guilty of an administrative crime like this.

So who doesn't follow the regulations and doesn't register the guns (whatever form of registration BATF NCIS check, city, or state etc)? Well, the criminals don't.

If Emerson was a thug and his wife knew about it (say he was Tony Soprano of sorts) do you think she would have had a restraining order issued against him? or if she did, would she sue him for $70k after he spent 2 years in jail? I doubt it.

First of all there would be NO record of a weapons possession and he would never admit to it: why would he incriminate himself? And second: criminal enterprise of Mr Soprano-like involves routine application of violence to settle "issues" and establish order which would most certainly deter the wife from pursuing destructive actions against him.

That's unfortunate but it appears that the justice system practiced by the criminal underworold with it's capital punishment (say "whacking people") is more "just" then our legal system !!! Gansters obey the rules or face the consequences.

Did we already loose our common sense? Can congress redefine the meaning of words and principles? Can they make injustice into "social justice"? I know that the Soviets accomplished that. Are we on our way there?

I think we are. Launtenberg is just one painful drop in the see of betrayal of the American People.

Posted by: CaptainG at April 17, 2006 08:31 AM

King of Cows,

The two balls are testicles, therefore you automatically have two strikes. Like I said, been there and done that.

Posted by: Roger .45 at April 17, 2006 10:13 AM

Typical to what I run into myself - the system that is protecting the kids' income is keeping me down just enough to not be able to protect the kids' income.

Posted by: KMATsDaddy at April 17, 2006 12:30 PM

What about when the effect of a collection of laws serve to destroy a person's ability to promote the General Welfare (clause of the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution or the appropriate clause of a state constitution)?

When a collection of laws serve to destroy a person and his ability to contribute to society isn't what happened to Emerson analogous to a Salem Witch Hunt?

See http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/SALEM.HTM

Is justice really served when an individual is destroyed economically when laws are based on fear of what if?

Can't a collection of federal laws denigrating the five conditions of the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution by cause for repeal by Congress or stickened by the Courts if actual justice was actual the intend of our American judicial system?

It seems to me that political justice is more important than actual justice in our American judicial system.

Posted by: Don Hamrick at April 17, 2006 03:24 PM

Two comments:
Lautenberg was only possible because Brady got passed into law, and Brady was only possible because of the FFL system established by the 68 GCA. The real target for eventual repeal should be the 68 GCA. One of the main purposes of the 68 GCA was to take 80 million gun owners (ordering through the mail at that point) and narrow it down to a quarter million FFLs which could be harassed non-stop by the ATF. They got the number down to 50k in the clinton years by messing with fees and zoning regulations and surely they will try to shrink the number further in the future. The end game of this strategy is to have Title 1 FFLs be as rare as SOTs are today. We need to beat all of this back eventually.

The problem with marriage/divorce is NOT the existance of lawyers. The problem is that the entire legal institution of marriage is set up to make it very easy for either partner (usually the woman) to invite Uncle Sam in as a third party to the relationship. A woman so inclined can jettison the sperm-donor entirely and rely on the State to extract child support and other forms of assistance from the husband or the taxypayers. That lawyers help to arbitrate this broken process is kind of ancillary. The lawyers just lower the transactional cost from wasting the court's time with crappy arguments. Fix the legal institution and you fix the lawyer problem. But you will piss off the feminists, I guarantee you 100 percent.



I may go in for a token religious ceremony someday but I will almost definitely opt for a trust or an LLC instead of a legal marriage. There are some minor asset protection benefits (holding property "Tenants by Entirety" gets you some common law benefits, for example) but these are a small gain for the enormous liability of being legally joined to someone you potentially cannot trust. I can get 90 percent of the TE benefits just by homesteading, and I can provide for the kids and the wife as I see fit, not as a judge sees fit.


By the way, there is nothign stopping anyone from seeking legal arrangements more to their liking than legal "marriage." A few hundred bucks having a lawyer draw up a decent partnership or trust contract to organize things the way you want is money well spent.

Posted by: Beerslurpy at April 17, 2006 07:27 PM

Something about this case rings my BS alarm. Dr. Emerson did not appeal the DVO? His share of the marital assets was less than $71,000? He could not have put his guns in a safe deposit box and given the key to his lawyer while he was appealing the order? I read the second Fifth Circuit opinion affirming his conviction and sentence. I could not access the first remanding his case. Nothing there to rebut the oldest legal principle: "De purgamentis non curat lex". ("The law does not give a ____ about trash.")

Posted by: nk at April 17, 2006 07:59 PM

I was at a panel discussion on the Lautenburg (sp?) provisions and a federal prosecutor admitted they rarely (pretty much NEVER) prosecute anyone for possessing a firearm while under a restraining order or possession of a firearm by an individual with a misdemeanor DV conviction, they just dont have the time or energy to do it.
That may be true only in her district though.
C.A.G.

Posted by: Christopher A. George at April 18, 2006 07:17 AM

The two balls are testicles, therefore you automatically have two strikes. Like I said, been there and done that.

I think your humorometer is b0rken.

Posted by: King of the Cows at April 18, 2006 08:37 AM

"He challenged it, the Fifth Circuit ruled that the Second Amendment is an individual right, but also that the statute survived (altho it said barely survived) the challenge, as a reasonable regulation, etc., etc."

There is no "reasonable regulation" clause in the 2nd. If this isn't taken to a higher court, it should have been. And when the supremes ruled the same, that would have been just another point in our court's system sad history of keeping government within the construct of the Constitution, and once again the bullets really should have started flying.

Yet we continue to wait our turn.

Sorry, I recently saw "v for vendetta" so I am in no mood for this crap.

Posted by: FishOrMan at April 23, 2006 05:01 PM

This nation gets one strike with me. Otherwise I 'm leaving! Try and do that to me, f u America, I'm outta here! I'm not going to be a prisoner to some system who only cares about material wealth.

Posted by: Partriarch Verlch at September 24, 2006 02:34 PM

http://www.kids-right.org/support_jm.htm
http://www.allhiphop.com/hiphopnews/?ID=5669

Here's a couple more links of child support nightmares!

Illegitimate and products of single mother households produce 85% of criminals in prison, jail or on parole! Who do we have to thank for those spectacular statistics?

Posted by: Partriarch Verlch at September 24, 2006 02:36 PM