Opinion ID: 2633488
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Interpretation of Article III, Section 1

Text: ¶ 149 The majority's conflation of private relationships with legal unions is also problematic in its analysis of Holm's claim that his bigamy conviction violates the guarantees of individual rights protected by article I of the Utah Constitution. The majority dismisses Holm's claim on the basis that the Utah Constitution offers no protection to polygamous behavior and, in fact, shows antipathy towards it by expressly prohibiting such behavior in article III, section 1. Supra ¶ 36 (emphasis added). However, that provision declares that polygamous or plural marriages are forever prohibited. Utah Const. art. III, § 1 (emphasis added). Here, as elsewhere in Utah law, I understand the term marriage to refer only to a legal union. See, e.g., Utah Const. art. I, § 29(1) (Marriage consists only of a legal union between a man and a woman.). Understood in this way, article III, section 1, by its plain language, does not prohibit private individual behavior but instead prevents Utah's state government, to whom the ordinance is addressed, from recognizing a particular form of union as a marriage. ¶ 150 The majority concludes that article III, section 1 is a restriction on individual rights rather than on state government. It justifies this conclusion primarily by reference to the proceedings of Utah's 1895 constitutional convention, which reflect the drafters' concern with following the federal requirements set forth in the Utah Enabling Act, ch. 138, 28 Stat. 107 (1894). Specifically, the majority emphasizes some delegates' concern that the federal government intended, through the Enabling Act, not only to prevent Utah from recognizing polygamous unions as valid marriages, but also to require that the state impose criminal penalties on polygamy. However, the majority's own analysis makes it clear that the drafters did not address this concern by revising article III, section 1; rather, they simply reaffirmed the validity of a territorial statute. See Utah Const. art. XXIV, § 2 (declaring in force an 1892 law in so far as the same defines and imposes penalties for polygamy). Moreover, that statute criminalized only polygamous marriage, not polygamous behavior. [9] 1892 Utah Laws ch. VII, § 1, at 5-6 (defining polygamy as ha[ving] a husband or wife living and marr[ying] another, or as marr[ying] more than one woman on the same day). The majority reasons that because the drafters thought it necessary to affirm the criminalization of polygamous marriage in article XXIV, they must therefore have intended the reference to polygamous marriage in article III, section 1 to place all private polygamous relationships outside constitutional protection. ¶ 151 My review of the history of Utah's statehood leads me to conclude otherwise, and further bolsters my understanding of the term marriage in article III, section 1. I read both the Enabling Act and the ordinance provisions, to the extent the latter can be identified with the former, [10] as carrying forward a restriction that Congress had placed on Utah's territorial government beginning with the Morrill Act, 12 Stat. 501 (1862). That statute provided that `all ... acts and parts of acts heretofore passed by the said legislative assembly of the Territory of Utah, which establish, support, maintain, shield or countenance polygamy, be, and the same hereby are, disapproved and annulled.' Cope v. Cope, 137 U.S. 682, 686, 11 S.Ct. 222, 34 L.Ed. 832 (1891) (quoting Morrill Act, ch. 126, § 2, 12 Stat. 501); see In re Handley, 7 Utah 49, 24 P. 673, 674-75 (1890) (citing Morrill Act). Among the acts to which the Morrill Act referred was undoubtedly the law incorporating the LDS Church, passed in 1851 by the Provisional State Government of the proposed State of Deseret. This law had granted the LDS Church full authority to conduct marriages of its members in accord with Church doctrine. [11] When Deseret's 1850 petition for statehood was denied and a territorial government was established instead, the territorial legislature revalidated the laws enacted by the provisional government. Dale L. Morgan, The State of Deseret 88 (1987) (citing 1852 Utah Laws 222, an October 4, 1851 joint resolution of the territorial legislature). Thus, after 1852, when the Church publicly recognized the doctrine of plural marriage, ceremonies of plural union performed according to Church practice were legally valid marriages under territorial law until the Morrill Act declared otherwise. This history demonstrates that the legal status of polygamous unions was a matter of concern. Accordingly, the language prohibiting plural or polygamous marriage in the Enabling Act and Ordinance provisions was likely intended to preclude the reenactment of laws granting polygamous unions legal recognition once Utah achieved statehood. [12] ¶ 152 The above discussion illustrates that when the term marriage in the Ordinance provision is understood, as I believe it must be, as denoting a legal status, the meaning of the provision is plain and in accord with territorial history. It could then be argued that the provision establishes that, as a matter of constitutional law, the state's refusal to recognize polygamous unions as legal marriages may not be construed as discriminatory treatment of those who engage in such unions as a matter of religious practice. However, this case does not present that issue since, as discussed above, Holm has made no claim to legal recognition. ¶ 153 Additional history, far from demonstrating the drafters' intent to exclude particular private behavior from access to constitutional protections, raises the possibility that the drafters anticipated some relief from governmental interference for those relationships already in existence. In addition to the provision criminalizing polygamous marriage, quoted above, the 1892 Act contained a separate provision criminalizing unlawful cohabitation, which it defined as any male person. . . cohabit[ing] with more than one woman. Id. § 2, 1892 Utah Laws at 6. Yet, the unlawful cohabitation provision, unlike the polygamy provision, was not specifically mentioned in article XXIV, section 2. The unlawful cohabitation provision was therefore subject to the general statement in article XXIV, section 2 that [a]ll laws of the Territory of Utah now in force, not repugnant to this Constitution, shall remain in force until they expire by their own limitations, or are altered or repealed by the Legislature. Utah Const. art. XXIV, § 2 (emphasis added). Accordingly, that provision would remain valid only if the state courts did not deem it unconstitutional, and only as long as the legislature kept it in effect. It is not inconceivable that the drafters, while conceding that polygamous unions could never receive legal recognition, believed that private polygamous practice, including cohabitation with former wives and their children, might continue. [13] ¶ 154 I therefore conclude that neither article III, section 1 nor article XXIV, section 2 categorically excludes private polygamous conduct from any possibility of protection under article I. I thus disagree that the court can so easily avoid the constitutional challenges Holm raises. My further discussion of Holm's state constitutional claims is limited to whether, in my view, his bigamy conviction violates our constitution's religious freedom guarantees. Because I conclude that it does, I need not consider additional state constitutional arguments.