Supreme Court declines to review Utah anti-bigamy statute News
Supreme Court declines to review Utah anti-bigamy statute

The US Supreme Court [official website] on Monday denied [order list, PDF] a petition for certiorari from Kody Brown and his four wives, famous for their reality television show Sister Wives [media website]. They were challenging the constitutionality of a little-used Utah statute that says bigamy is a third degree felony. They claimed the statute “infringed their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights,” and sought a permanent injunction against the state of Utah preventing enforcement of the law. The US Supreme Court’s decision to deny the appeal means that the case has no other avenue for appeal.

The Browns filed [JURIST report] a petition for certiorari in September. In April [JURIST report] they lost their challenge [opinion, PDF] to Utah’s bigamy statute in the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit [official website]. In August 2014 a judge for the US District Court for the District of Utah struck down [JURIST report] portions of the state’s anti-bigamy statute as unconstitutional. The Browns first legally challenged [JURIST report] the law in 2011, saying that its application had a chilling effect on them, forcing them to leave the state of Utah.

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