Top court rejects case on polygamy
 Utahn Holm had appealed his bigamy conviction
 
By Ben Winslow
Deseret Morning News
 
The U.S. Supreme Court has shot down a challenge to the ban on polygamy, declining to hear an appeal of Rodney Holm's bigamy conviction.

Without commenting Monday, the justices declined to take up the case. Holm's attorney, Rod Parker, was disappointed.

"It's an important issue that deserves to be addressed," he said. "The people deserve to have this case heard."

The Utah Attorney General's Office said the justices' decision not to hear the Holm case concludes that the Hildale polygamist's constitutional rights were not violated.

"This is a case that involved a minor," said assistant Utah Attorney General Laura Dupaix. "Everyone agrees that a person does not have a constitutional right to have sex with a minor or to take a minor as a bigamous bride."

In 1998, 16-year-old Ruth Stubbs was told by Fundamentalist LDS Church leader Rulon Jeffs that she would be wed to 32-year-old Rodney Holm, who was a Hildale police officer. He was already married to Stubbs' sister, and she would become his third wife.

In a ceremony performed by Warren Jeffs (who is now the FLDS Church's leader and is currently facing criminal charges), Holm and Stubbs were declared "legally and lawfully husband and wife."

Stubbs conceived two children with him before she turned 18. She eventually left the marriage, and prosecutors convicted Holm of bigamy and unlawful sexual conduct with a minor in 2003.

Last year, the Utah Supreme Court upheld his conviction.

Holm's attorney appealed, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to consider whether a ban on plural marriage among consenting adults is outdated, violates his right to freedom of religion and whether polygamists are targeted for prosecution.

Parker said the issues that Holm's conviction raised deserve to be heard.

"What it's going to take is for them to construct a test case that doesn't involve a minor," he said.

However, the Utah Attorney General's Office says any such test case is unlikely. Dupaix noted that both Rodney Holm and polygamist Tom Green's convictions involved child-bride marriages.

"Mark Shurtleff has made it pretty clear that our office is not targeting polygamists for prosecution because of the religion," Dupaix said. "We're more concerned about crimes happening in their community just like we are crimes in any community."

Recently, a Box Elder County man was charged with child bigamy stemming from his alleged marriage to a 16-year-old girl. Gerald Roskelley, 39, has pleaded not guilty to seven felony counts, including child bigamy, rape and forcible sex abuse.

Another lawsuit challenging Utah's ban on polygamy is winding its way through the federal courts. Three people sued the Salt Lake County Clerk after they were denied a marriage license for the right to become husband and wife — and wife.

E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com
 
deseretnews.com
Originally published Tuesday, February 27, 2007
 
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