Utah Supreme Court hears arguments on removing polygamous judge
 
By Jennifer Dobner
The Associated Press
San Diego Union-Tribune
 
PROVO, Utah – A small-town judge ordered removed from office because he has three wives says his polygamy should not be grounds for removing him from the bench.

"As long as I can do my job, why should I (be removed)?" Justice Court Judge Walter Steed asked Wednesday outside a courtroom at Brigham Young University where the Utah Supreme Court heard oral arguments.

The state Judicial Conduct Commission in February sought Steed's removal after a 14-month investigation determined he had violated Utah's bigamy law. Bigamy is a third-degree felony in Utah.

Steed has served for 25 years in the southern Utah border town of Hildale, presiding over cases such as drunken driving and domestic violence. He told reporters after the hearing he doesn't feel persecuted by the removal action.

"I feel like there's an issue – the constitutionality of the bigamy statute – that needs to be decided," said Steed, who is a truck driver by trade and a part-time judge. "If I can be a vehicle to help decide it, I don't feel picked on."

The complaint against Steed was filed with the commission in November 2003 by Tapestry Against Polygamy, an advocacy group founded by ex-polygamous women who help others leave the handful of secretive religious colonies that adhere to the practice.

Plural marriage was an original tenet of the Mormon church, but the faith abandoned the practice as a condition of statehood in 1890. About 30,000 polygamists, who split from the main church into various fundamentalist sects more than 100 years ago, are believed to live in enclaves in Utah and elsewhere.

Steed legally married his first wife in 1965, according to court documents. He and his second and third wives were married – or "sealed" as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints refers to it – in religious ceremonies in 1975 and 1985. The three women are biological sisters and no one in the family expected the second and third marriages to be recognized outside the sect.

In court Wednesday, justices focused their questions on two main issues: whether Steed's conduct impugned his office and whether he should be removed if he has not been convicted of bigamy. Both the Utah attorney general and the Washington County prosecutor have declined to prosecute Steed.

"If they would have prosecuted, would that make a difference in your argument?" Justice Jill N. Parrish asked Steed's lawyer, Rodney Parker.

Parker said that had Steed been prosecuted and convicted, the commission would have used that as grounds for removing him from the bench. Had he been acquitted, Parker said, "I don't think we would be here at all."

Justice Ronald E. Nehring asked Parker if judges have the same ability to exercise civil disobedience as ordinary citizens, noting that sitting on the bench does impose some limitations to constitutional rights.

Parker said he believes the answer lies in the type of behavior. He said drug abuse, for example, would clearly bring disrepute to a judge, but Steed's private behavior in his home shouldn't rise to that level.

Commission attorney Colin Winchester told justices that in fact there is a "sliding scale" considered by the commission. "It's not in the issue of whether or not misconduct occurred, but it is in the level of the misconduct," Winchester said.

The commission has four choices when it finds that misconduct by a judge warrants a response: public reprimand, censure, suspension or removal. But Winchester said there is a fifth, more silent category.

"If you get misconduct and it's relatively minor, you get a warning," he said.
 
SignOnSanDiego.com
Originally published November 2, 2005
 
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