HOW MANY WIVES DO YOU HAVE TO HAVE IN UTAH BEFORE YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO BE A JUDGE-- LET ALONE GET PROSECUTED?

Early last November I endeavored to introduce DWT readers to a part-time judge in Utah, one Wally Steed-- and to his 3 wives and 32 children. Finally on Friday ole Wally was ordered removed from the bench by the Utah Supreme Court. It was a unanimous decision in support of last year's ruling by Utah's Judicial Conduct Commission, to removal Steed for violating Utah's bigamy law. Steed had served as a judge in a polygamist community (Hildale) in remote southern Utah, for 25 years, ruling in domestic violence cases (among other misdemeanor crimes).

Utah's nutcase Republican Attorney General, Mark Shurtleff, had refused to prosecute Steed, bitching that "If you charge one where do you stop? You start prosecuting 10,000 people and have 20,000 kids go into the (child welfare) system?" He only prosecutes the bigamy cases that involve violence and sex with minors, although the Supreme Court pointed out that "When the law is violated or ignored by those charged by society with the fair and impartial enforcement of the law, the stability of our society is placed at undue risk." (The Supreme Court says that Steed "has given every indication that he intends to continue his 'plural marriage' arrangement.") No one knows for certain how many wives Shurtleff and other Utah Republicans have but Steed maintains that removing him from the bench is a violation of his religious freedom.