## Facts

- Thomas Arthur Green maintained simultaneous conjugal-type relationships with multiple women who lived with him in a cluster of mobile homes and presented themselves publicly as his wives.
- Many of the women and children used Green’s surname, and Green fathered numerous children with the women over a period of decades.
- Some relationships began with licensed civil marriages; others followed unlicensed religious ceremonies. Green and the women generally treated these relationships as marriages.
- Green tried to avoid being in more than one licensed marriage at a time by divorcing a licensed wife before entering a new licensed marriage.
- Despite the divorces, Green continued living with and maintaining conjugal-type relationships with the women he divorced, while also forming additional relationships.
- Utah charged Green with four counts of bigamy under Utah Code Ann. § 76-7-101, which criminalizes a married person who either marries another person or cohabits with another person.
- A jury convicted Green. On appeal (certified to the Utah Supreme Court), Green argued the bigamy statute violated the First Amendment and due process, and he challenged the trial court’s use of Utah’s unsolemnized marriage statute to treat certain relationships as marriages for purposes of the bigamy law.

## Issues

1. Whether Utah’s bigamy statute violates the Free Exercise Clause by targeting or unlawfully burdening religiously motivated plural marriage.
2. Whether Utah Code Ann. § 76-7-101 is unconstitutionally vague, including the meaning of “cohabit,” either on its face or as applied to Green’s conduct.
3. Whether the trial court erred by applying Utah’s unsolemnized marriage statute (Utah Code Ann. § 30-1-4.5) to recognize certain relationships as marriages for purposes of the bigamy charges.

## Decision

- The Utah Supreme Court affirmed Green’s bigamy convictions.
- The court held Utah’s bigamy statute is a neutral criminal law of general application and does not violate the Free Exercise Clause merely because it burdens conduct Green claimed was religiously motivated.
- The court rejected Green’s claim that the statute targeted his religion, concluding the law applies to all married persons who marry or cohabit with another, regardless of religious motive.
- The court held the statute was not unconstitutionally vague. In context, “cohabit” conveys a sufficiently definite meaning, and Green’s conduct fell within the statute’s clearly prohibited core.
- The court upheld the trial court’s use of the unsolemnized marriage statute to determine that certain relationships met statutory requirements to be treated as marriages in applying the bigamy statute.

## Legal Principles

- A neutral law of general applicability that incidentally burdens religious practice does not violate the Free Exercise Clause solely because it affects religiously motivated conduct.
- A criminal statute is void for vagueness only if it fails to give a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice of what is prohibited or invites arbitrary enforcement; an as-applied vagueness claim fails when the defendant’s conduct is plainly covered.
- Under Utah’s bigamy statute, a person commits bigamy by being married and then either marrying another person or cohabiting with another person; “cohabit” may be proven by evidence of a continuing conjugal-type relationship, not only by a second licensed marriage.
- Utah’s unsolemnized marriage statute can be used to determine whether parties formed a legally recognized marriage without a licensed ceremony when statutory requirements are met (such as capacity, mutual agreement, cohabitation, and holding out as married), and such recognition may be used in applying other statutes, including criminal provisions.
- The State may rely on evidence of how parties lived, represented their relationship to others, and organized their household to show marital-type status and cohabitation for purposes of enforcing marriage-related criminal laws.

## Conclusion

The Utah Supreme Court affirmed Thomas Green’s bigamy convictions, holding that Utah’s bigamy statute is a neutral, generally applicable law that may be enforced against religiously motivated polygamy, that the statute’s cohabitation language provided adequate notice and standards when applied to Green’s long-running conjugal living arrangements, and that the trial court properly used Utah’s unsolemnized marriage statute to treat certain relationships as marriages for purposes of the bigamy charges.


State v. Green, 99 P.3d 820 (2004)