Brown v. Buhman

Kody Brown and his four partners from the television show "Sister Wives" (plaintiffs) — only one of whom, Meri, was legally married to Kody, the others being religiously but not legally married to him — sued county attorney Jeffrey Buhman (defendant) to challenge Utah's bigamy statute, which criminalized both purporting to marry a second person and simply cohabiting with another person while already married. The Browns argued the cohabitation prong unconstitutionally targeted religious cohabitation while leaving other cohabitation unpunished, violated free exercise and substantive due process, and was unconstitutionally vague; Buhman noted the prosecutor's office had a policy of not prosecuting religious or other cohabitation absent an accompanying crime.