Post by wurks on Mar 14, 2010 17:46:59 GMT -5
There is one big problem here. Bill is under the assumption that polygamy is only a misdemeanor and not a felony. While his reasoning is correct the Constitution of the state of Utah says a person holding an elected office can be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors.
I would like to see how the writers are going to address this fact next season. Bill may not go to jail but he most certainly can be removed from office. Once again Bills plans have backfired and the family has been embarrassed in public. It was all for nothing. Remember in seasons past when the show depicted the family skating and then cracks appear in the ice. Now it shows them floating or falling…. They just fell through the ice.
Unquestionably it's a much more harsh environment now, especially with the LDS because they want desperately to be divorced from their polygamous past.
The problem that the law has with this is what do they do with monogamists who don't monog? Unless someone actually does marry two, or more, people (as in get a marriage certificate from the State) you really only have an ethics violation, not a broken law. When they start prosecuting polygamy on every man who has too many girlfriends, even with babies and DNA etc, then you will see "equal protection under the law"... but I don't see that happening.
In the cases of Rodney Holm, and Tom Green the state had to marry them through common law marriage so that they could then prosecute them for polygamy. Interesting wrinkle... wouldn't you say? But the State was motivated by the fact that the women (victims) were underage. In both cases they had a complaining witness.. (although in Tom Greens case she tried to recant -- unsuccessfully because CPS carried the torch)
In both cases, had they been "adults"... they would have only been guilty of adultery and they probably would never have been prosecuted for it.
If the victim.. so called, is underage then technically the state.. or CPS can make the statutory complaint for them. Then of course there is a statute of limitations too.. meaning the complaint has to be made timely and prosecuted timely, but that is another matter.
Then there is the matter of age difference, which along with raising the age of consent and marriage is also a fairly recent change in the laws in most states... (age difference of 10 years if the girl is under 18 in Utah and Arizona, but not in Texas yet)
So .. Bill has not actually broken the law. All of his "wives" were over 18. What he has is a very serious ethics violation. I'm not sure how the Utah constitution is worded but the fine print in the USA constitution states specifically that the elected member has to be approved by the "body" of their branch of congress. "Seated".. by a majority.
Even in the recent case of Kevin Garn.. it's an ethics violation. He resigns for his "indiscretions" out of respect for the party/legislature , but it would be pretty hard 25 years later to charge him with whatever "crime" he may have committed. It has much more serious ramifications now than it might have 25 years ago as well.
The men who are being convicted of sex with a minor in Texas have violated the new law effective 2005 with "extended sentence" provision.. (it went from a class 3 Felony(20 years) to a class one Felony (99 years) and they "broke the law" AFTER they had been amply and seriously warned that it would not be tolerated.
So that's the thing that has turned the public into a lynch mob.
And that is what I think will be Bill Henrickson's problem as well: an irate Utah public, and a legislature who can't condone the ethics violation. But I don't see him actually being in trouble with the law just yet.