Action And Reaction In Kentucky Case
Written by RogerCP | Friday, January 23rd, 2009
After a month of lull the action in the Kentucky domain name seizure case has been fast and furious. The Appellate Court gave delivered a majority judgment in favor of the domain name holders and against the State of Kentucky. The State of Kentucky promptly filed a Notice of Appeal against the judgment.
The genesis of all this legal activity was the order issued by the governor of Kentucky to seize the domain names of 141 online casino and online poker room operators because they were illegal gambling devices under Kentucky law. When the domain name owners went to the County Circuit Court they received an interim order against them. Before the order could be made final the domain name owners filed an appeal in the Appellate court.
On the 20th of January 2009 the Appellate Court decided 2 to 1 in favor of the domain name holders. Judges Jeff Taylor and Michelle Keller gave a favorable verdict. They said that a gambling device had to be something mechanical. A string of numbers or letters could in no way be construed as something mechanical. Therefore they ruled that the domain names were not gambling devices. Judge Michael Caperton dissented with this view. He said that a wider definition of gambling device was essential in the electronic age. Since the domain name enabled communication between the players’ computers and the remote computers of the online gambling organizations, it had to be viewed as a component of the system and hence as a gambling device.
Both the iMEGA, who had filed the appeal on behalf of the domain name owners, and the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) had lauded the judgment. Rick Muny, the Kentucky state director for the PPA, said, “… that he hoped Governor Beshear and Secretary Brown will abandon this misguided effort and focus new energies into regulation and taxation of Internet poker.” However that was not to be.
The State of Kentucky through Secretary Michael Brown filed a Notice of Appeal against the order of the Appellate Court. A press statement released simultaneously said that the State of Kentucky was committed to protecting its citizens from illegal Internet gambling. The statement added that the Appellate order did not deny that illegal gambling is occurring in Kentucky resulting in a loss of millions of dollars.
John Pappas, the Director of the PPA, called this act a waste of the tax payers’ money. He said that the citizens of Kentucky should be outraged by the myopic stance taken by their elected representatives.
Whatever anyone may have said along the way, it was evident from day one that the matter would be ultimately decided by the Supreme Court.
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· Written by RogerCP · Filed Under Poker News · Comments Off
