## Facts

- Royston E. Potter was a police officer employed by Murray City, Utah.
- The City discharged Potter after learning he was practicing plural marriage.
- The stated basis for discharge was that Potter, through plural marriage, failed to support the Utah Constitution, which provides that “polygamous or plural marriages are forever prohibited.”
- Utah also criminalized bigamy under state law.
- The parties stipulated that Potter’s plural marriage practice was based on a good-faith religious belief.
- Potter sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, seeking damages and declaratory/injunctive relief to invalidate and enjoin Utah’s anti-polygamy provisions; the United States was joined due to issues concerning Utah’s admission conditions.
- The district court entered summary judgment for defendants, and Potter appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether Utah’s prohibition of polygamy, and Potter’s discharge for practicing plural marriage, violated the Free Exercise Clause.
2. Whether substantive due process/right-to-privacy doctrine protects plural marriage, rendering Utah’s anti-polygamy provisions unconstitutional.
3. Whether alleged infrequent enforcement rendered Utah’s anti-polygamy laws unconstitutional under due process or equal protection on a desuetude theory.
4. Whether Utah’s admission conditions and related constitutional provisions violated the equal-footing doctrine by restricting Utah’s domestic-relations authority.

## Decision

- The Tenth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the defendants.
- Utah’s prohibition of plural marriage did not violate the Free Exercise Clause, even as applied to Potter’s religiously motivated conduct.
- The constitutional right to privacy was not extended to protect polygamous marriages.
- Infrequent prosecutions did not establish abandonment or constitutional invalidity of the anti-polygamy laws.
- Utah’s anti-polygamy constitutional provision and related admission-condition arguments did not violate the equal-footing doctrine.

## Legal Principles

- Religious belief does not provide a constitutional exemption from generally applicable prohibitions on polygamy; the state may regulate conduct that conflicts with a compelling governmental interest.
- The right to privacy/substantive due process protection for intimate and family decisions does not include a fundamental right to enter polygamous marriages.
- A state may justify a law burdening religiously motivated conduct by showing a compelling interest in protecting values historically and widely held, including the preservation of monogamy as a basic social institution.
- Minimal or sporadic enforcement does not, by itself, render a criminal statute constitutionally void under due process or equal protection; low prosecution rates do not prove abandonment.
- Federal admission conditions and parallel state constitutional commitments barring polygamy do not, on these facts, deprive a state of equal footing.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Utah’s anti-polygamy regime and Murray City’s termination of a police officer for practicing plural marriage, rejecting Free Exercise, privacy/substantive due process, desuetude, and equal-footing challenges.


Potter v. Murray City, 760 F.2d 1065 (10th Cir. 1985)