Response to Joel Downs: Yes Munford is a Gun Grabber

Response to Joel Downs: 

Yes Munford is a Gun Grabber

By

James Scott Trimm

Recently James Munford's gun grabbing victim Mike Ives released an open letter calling on his State Representative Bill Zedler to renounce his endorsement of James Munford for Judge of the 322nd Court:

Munford supporter Joel Downs responded:

Somebody should ask Mr.Ives why his attorney, Jennifer Moore who is also running for the same seat as Judge Munford, gave up his gun rights by signing off on a "Mutual Injunction as to Persons" request.

This would be a nonesensical question.  Jennifer Moore never did any such thing. A box checked next to the words "Mutual Temporary Injunction as to Persons" does not meet the criteria of "explicit" terms required to trigger the 18 USA 922 (g). For an injunction to invoke 18 USC 922 (g) it must be an injunction that "explicitly prohibits the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against such intimate partner or child that would reasonably be expected to cause bodily injury."

Downs continued:

As a Board Certified Divorce Attorney, she must have known that by requesting an injunction, instead of refusing to concur with the wife's attorney while also mounting a defense of her client's rights, she would be assuring that his rights would be taken away.

 It is important to realize that there was no agreement between the parties.  Elementary contract law requires a meeting of minds for there to be an agreement.  But there was clearly no meeting of the minds here.

Actually, Jennifer Moore has stated that she checked the box knowing that a box checked next to the words "Mutual Temporary Injunction as to Persons" does not come near meeting that standard which must be met "explicitly" by a triggering injunction.

And this is a point that Judge Bill Harris and others have completely missed in their rationalization of Munford's Gun Grabbing. Jennifer Moore was well aware that a box checked next to the words "Mutual Temporary Injunction as to Persons" does not meet the standard required by the 18 USC 922 (g) to trigger its prohibition on possessing firearms. 

The Temporary Orders Munford later issued (which did contain outright gun grabbing language to which Mike Ives never agreed) did not contain the triggering language found in the petitions that would have triggered 18 USC 299 (g).  If such triggering terms had been agreed to by Mike Ives in the Rule 11 Agreement, then they should have certainly appeared in the Temporary Orders issued on August 14th, 2009.

The only injunction that existed on August 14th 2009 when Munford issued his gun grabbing order, was a box checked next to the words "Mutual Temporary Injunction as to Persons", and nothing about the terms explicitly in that injunction meet the standard required to trigger 18 USC 922(G).

Tarrant Families Matter hired a Washington DC Law Firm of Federal Litigation Experts to weigh in with an authoritative analysis.  They concluded on this issue: 



First, section 922(g)(8) simply did not apply at the time Munford entered his order in August 2009, because there was no injunction in place at that time meeting the requirement in section 922(g)(8)(C)(ii). It appears that such an order had previously applied, having been entered in June 2009, but that order appears to have expired by operation of law 14 days later. Meanwhile, a generic "injunction as to persons" order was in effect when Judge Munford entered his order in August 2009, but that "injunction as to persons" did not contain the explicit language required to trigger section 922(g)(8). Thus, section 922 was not even relevant at the time Judge Munford entered his order.


There is no evidence that Mike Ives agreed to an injunction that would have triggered the Federal Law, and certainly as the time that his guns were grabbed, no such qualifying injunction existed.

Should Mike Ive's rights have been "taken away" (your own words) unless he paid money to fight for them?  As soon as Mike Ives got his copy of the Gun Grabbing order from Munford, he posted "I don't believe there is justification to do this but it is too expensive to fight and is not as high a priority as custody of my children."

Munford's gun grabbing order had put Mike Ives in the impossible position, with his limited financial resources, to spend those limited resources fighting for his parental rights, or fighting for his Second Amendment Rights!  This is a dilemma that no parent should be put in.  As I have said repeatedly, Mike Ives only crime was being both a parent and a gun owner.  He was being forced to choose between his parental rights and his constitutional rights, and like any good parent, he chose to fight for his parental rights.  He was, at the time, being forced to simply accept being stripped  of his Second Amendment rights.... that is until the NRA agreed to back his fight.  As soon as Mike Ives was able to do so, he fought, with NRA backing very hard against the gun grabbing order that originated from James Munford.

Mike Ives attorney Jennifer Moore, with NRA funding, was able to fight Munford's order, and eventually, after the NRA got involved, Judge Berger removed all anti-gun provisions from the orders.


 Downs continued:

Since 1994, when the Violence Against Women Act was passed, Federal law has had control of firearms in divorces, if there are injunctions that contain key phrases. It just so happens that the Texas Family code, which controls divorce procedure in Texas has precise language as to what phrases a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO), or injunction contains. If either party asks for an injunction/TRO, those phrases  trigger the Federal law. 

That is simply not true. The TRO in this case had long expired (those only last 14 days in Texas).  An injunction may or may not contain the triggering language.  In fact no injunction in effect at the time Munford issued his orders contained triggering language.

In the Emerson case the court found that in that case the application of this federal law was constitutional because the laws of the various states would prohibit issuing the kind of injunction described in 18 USA 922 (g)(8)(C)(ii) unless there was "evidence credited by the court" that "reflected a real threat of danger or injury to the protected party by the party enjoined" and that "Texas law meets these general minimum standards." So while Emerson does not apply to the Ives Case directly (because 18 USC 922 (g) does not apply to it), by the standard set forth in Emerson, Munford's order would have itself have been unconstitutional, since Ives had not even been accused of making threats or of any wrong doing.

Downs went on:


Both parties asked for an injunction. The requests contained the Federal law trigger phrases because the Family Code requires them.

False. The Family Code does not require them. This is evidenced by the fact that there was no such triggering language, either in any injunction that was in effect at the time Munford issued his gun grabbing order, or even in the orders that contained the gun grabbing order itself.  In fact if the Family Code required such langauge be used in any injunction without "evidence credited by the court" that "reflected a real threat of danger or injury to the protected party by the party enjoined" then according to the ruling in Emerson, it would have been unconstitutional.  However the law does not require that language.

Joel Downs concluded:

Mike Ives lost his gun rights *because* Judge Munford is *not* an activist judge, Munford follows the rule of law. Ives also lost his gun rights because Jennifer Moore, his attorney and now candidate for the 322nd District Court, was dumb enough to give them up without a fight.

Oh, well, it is a neat trick I guess.
1. An attorney fails to protect her client's gun rights.
2. Takes pay to get them, partially, back.
3. Is declared 2nd Amendment Hero by local yahoo for doing so.
4. Becomes candidate for judge as 2nd Amendment Hero.

Joel, if your theory is right then Jennifer Moore may be the smartest lawyer in the county. She knew the law better than Munford and knew her opportunity to get rid of Munford was to lay behind the log and get the Case to Berger. She knew that checking a silly box did not meet any kind of federal or Constitutional requirement of explicit language in the order. She was prepared to take this to the Supreme Court, knowing that the NRA was looking for a test case. No two bit form that Munford followed met the explicit standard of gun triggering requirements. And if it had under these facts would have been unconstitutional.

Joel, I know you have not tried many jury trials and neither has Munford. It is common practice at charge time for lawyers to try to inject reversible error. By outsmarting Munford Jennifer is an American hero

What Moore didn't anticipate is that Munford was such a gun grabbing activist that he could not contain himself.  Instead of simply inserting language into the injunction that would have triggered the Federal Law, he skipped that altogether and wrote his own unconstitutional gun grabbing provision into his orders instead!

Joel, what law graduate helped you prepare this irresponsible analysis. You are only trying to slander Jennifer’s conduct when in fact you are not even smart enough to recognize her brilliance. 

Ridiculous. Game over.