Polygamist Utah Judge Tries to Keep His Seat
A Utah judge with three wives, one legal, two spiritual, is suing to keep his seat on the bench.
Judge Walter Steed, who serves in the polygamous border town of Hildale, is legally married to one woman but considers himself spiritually married to two others, and he has 32 children. Steed is a member of the reclusive Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which dominates Hildale and Colorado City, Ariz.
The Utah Judicial Conduct Commission wants him off the bench. The Utah Supreme Court will now decide.
One issue is Steed's contention that the law allowing prosecutors to pursue people who consider themselves plurally married but aren't legally married is unconstitutional.....Utah's attorney general and the Washington County attorney previously declined to file criminal charges against Steed.
Utah. The state that until 2004 allowed executions by firing squad. On a related note, when Utah debated the bill to abolish firing squads last year, it was clear that the move was not prompted by humanist concerns.
During the Senate debate on Thursday, Sen. Ron Allen, a Democrat, said allowing murderers to choose firing squads so they can "go out in a blaze of glory" makes heroes of criminals and causes victims' families more pain.
But Sen. Dave Thomas, a Republican, argued that media circuses are "exactly what we want" in executions. "We don't want these sentences to be carried out in the dead of night so no one knows," said Thomas, adding that lethal injection is painless and "the easy way out."
What country is Utah in again?
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