Top court rejects case on polygamy

The U.S. Supreme Court has shot down a challenge to the ban on polygamy, declining to hear an appeal of Rodney Holm's bigamy conviction.

Without commenting Monday, the justices declined to take up the case. Holm's attorney, Rod Parker, was disappointed.

"It's an important issue that deserves to be addressed," he said. "The people deserve to have this case heard."

The Utah Attorney General's Office said the justices' decision not to hear the Holm case concludes that the Hildale polygamist's constitutional rights were not violated.

"This is a case that involved a minor," said assistant Utah Attorney General Laura Dupaix. "Everyone agrees that a person does not have a constitutional right to have sex with a minor or to take a minor as a bigamous bride."

In 1998, 16-year-old Ruth Stubbs was told by Fundamentalist LDS Church leader Rulon Jeffs that she would be wed to 32-year-old Rodney Holm, who was a Hildale police officer. He was already married to Stubbs' sister, and she would become his third wife.

In a ceremony performed by Warren Jeffs (who is now the FLDS Church's leader and is currently facing criminal charges), Holm and Stubbs were declared "legally and lawfully husband and wife."

Stubbs conceived two children with him before she turned 18. She eventually left the marriage, and prosecutors convicted Holm of bigamy and unlawful sexual conduct with a minor in 2003.

Last year, the Utah Supreme Court upheld his conviction.

Holm's attorney appealed, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to consider whether a ban on plural marriage among consenting adults is outdated, violates his right to freedom of religion and whether polygamists are targeted for prosecution.

Parker said the issues that Holm's conviction raised deserve to be heard.

"What it's going to take is for them to construct a test case that doesn't involve a minor," he said.

However, the Utah Attorney General's Office says any such test case is unlikely. Dupaix noted that both Rodney Holm and polygamist Tom Green's convictions involved child-bride marriages.