Sister Wives' Polygamous Clan: We Live in Fear Because of Utah's Bigamy Law

"We literally live day to day [not[ knowing whether our family will be destroyed," declare Kody Brown and two of his four wives in lawsuit addendums

By Josh Grossberg Oct 18, 2011 8:35 PMTags
Sister WivesTLC

It's not easy being married, especially when you're married to several people at once.

Just ask Kody Brown.

Fighting the good fight on behalf of polygamists, the husband at the center of TLC's Sister Wives and two of his wives have filed addendums to their lawsuit in a Utah federal court explaining how the state's bigamy laws in their view have threatened to tear apart their family and caused ongoing anxiety.

Here's what they had to say.

"We literally live day to day without knowing whether our family will be destroyed by a decision of some prosecutor in Utah to charge us," wrote Janelle Brown in court papers obtained by the Salt Lake City Tribune.

Kody and Meri Brown (Kody's legal missus) also submitted statements to that effect hoping to persuade a federal judge that the family suffered irreparable harm as the result of Utah's statute prohibiting plural marriage, a once-traditional (though no longer sanctioned) Mormon practice that became a third-degree felony that could net violators up to five years in prison. (The official Mormon church banned plural marriages more than one hundred years ago.)

The point of the filing, say the Browns, is to show that the law was not being fairly applied and persuade the court to declare it unconstitutional so they're not punished for an arrangement that's mutually consensual among adults.

A spokesperson with the Utah Attorney General's Office was unavailable for comment.

However, prosecutors previously told the newspaper they're seeking the suit's dismissal, noting they have no intention of bringing charges against the family, and furthermore on the grounds that the Browns failed to show how they they've been harmed by the state.

Kody Brown himself said as much in his statement, indicating that Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and his press secretary told the reality star on three separate occasions that state attorneys would not be pursuing a criminal case.

"I asked Defendant Shurtleff if Shurtleff would pursue me criminally if I went public, and Defendant Shurtleff answered that he would not," wrote Brown.

He added that the attorney general informed him he didn't have the resources to prosecute polygamists unless he discovered they were marrying child brides or committing incest or welfare and tax fraud.