Court to decide status of judge with three wives

A small-town judge removed from office because he has three wives faced a hearing before the Utah Supreme Court today in his bid to remain on the bench.

Those pursuing the case against Judge Walter Steed say his plural marriage creates a conflict: After taking an oath to uphold the law, he shouldn’t be breaking it.

“You can’t have it both ways,” said Colin Winchester, the executive director of the state’s Judicial Conduct Commission.

The commission issued an order seeking Steed’s removal from the bench in February, after a 14-month investigation determined Steed was a polygamist and as such had violated Utah’s bigamy law.

Bigamy is a third-degree felony in Utah punishable by up to five years in prison.

Plural marriage was an original tenet of the mainline 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 be living in Utah.