XPost: alt.law-enforcement, alt.atheism, talk.politics.guns
XPost: alt.survival
From: fmhlaw@comcast.net
On 10/4/2014 4:56 PM, Scout wrote:
>
>
> "Just Wondering" wrote in message
> news:54305c56$0$4775$882e7ee2@usenet-news.net...
>> Scout wrote:
>>> Just Wondering wrote:
>>>> Scout wrote:
>>>>> Just Wondering wrote:
>>
>>>>>> Under Utah law, Kodi has only one wife, Mari has only one husband,
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> the other three ladies have no marital partner at all.
>>>>>
>>>>> Then why were they being investigated then?
>>>>>
>>>> Because Utah's bigamy statute, Utah Code Ann. 76-7-101 states:
>>>>
>>>> (1) A person is guilty of bigamy when, knowing he has a husband or
>>>> wife or knowing the other person has a husband or wife, the person
>>>> purports to marry another person or cohabits with another person.
>>>> (2) Bigamy is a felony of the third degree.
>>>>
>>>> Kodi Brown had a wife, Mari, and also cohabited with three other
>>>> women. Under Utah law, he was committing three felonies.
>>>
>>> And yet it were the Browns that were under investigation. So why were
>>> they investigating all 5 if the issue was only with him?
>>>
>> Because Utah case law construes "cohabits" to mean "lives together as
>> husband and wife." if the state wanted to charge Kodi with "unlawful
>> cohabitation" bigamy, it would have to prove that Kodi lived together
>> as man and wife with one or more of the other women. Which means that
>> to bring the charge against Kodi, the state would have to prove the
>> other women's living arrangements with Kodi.
>
> Ah, but you've already told me that Utah only sees him as married to one
> of the women. So how can he cohabit with the others?
>
Are you really that obtuse? By being legally married to Meri, while
living together with Janelle as husband and wife, living together with
Christine as husband and wife, and living together with Robyn as husband
and wife?
> Oh, and would not that the women also cohabit with the other women.
> Because nothing in the term cohabitation says "lives together as husband
> and wife" only that they cohabitate as married people do.
>
Don't you even read what you're responding to? Under the Utah bigamy
law, "cohabit" doesn't mean simply living together. As I already said,
Utah case law construes "cohabit" to mean "LIVE TOGETHER AS HUSBAND AND
WIFE." Meri and Robyn never lived together as husband and wife, so they
didn't cohabit within the meaning of the bigamy statute.
Here's a quote from State v. Barlow, 107 Utah 292, 153 P.2d 647, 651-652
(Utah 1944):
we proceed to consider the contentions of appellants in the order in
which they are stated hereinabove. The first has to do with the meaning
of the word “cohabit” as used in the statute, the information and the
stipulation.
Subsequent to the enactment by Congress in 1882 of the statute making
unlawful cohabitation a penal offense in territory within the exclusive
jurisdiction of the United States, prosecutions and convictions followed
in many cases in the Territory of Utah, a number of which reached the
Territorial Supreme Court, among them United States v. Cannon, 4 Utah
122, 7 P. 369, and United States v. Musser, 4 Utah 153, 7 P. 389. The
Cannon case was appealed to the United States Supreme Court, The
decision in that court construed the statute, giving to the word
“cohabit” therein the same meaning ascribed it by the territorial court.
Cannon v. United States, 116 U.S. 55, 6 S.Ct. 278, 29 L.Ed. 561.
However, in Cannon v. United States, 118 U.S. 355, 6 S.Ct. 1064, 29
L.Ed. 561, the United States Supreme Court having decided in Snow v.
United States, 118 U.S. 346, 6 S.Ct. 1059, 30 L.Ed. 207, that the court
was without jurisdiction of the writ of error in such case set aside its
decision theretofore rendered in the Cannon case. However, the dismissal
of the writ in the United States Supreme Court left the decision of the
Territorial Court unimpaired. Furthermore, the definition of the word
“cohabit” given in that case is but the dictionary definition. The
present Webster's International unabridged dictionary gives the
following definition of “cohabit”: “1. To dwell or abide in company.
Archaic. 2. To dwell or live together as husband and wife * * *.” For
more than 60 years the word “cohabit” as used in the statutes has had
the ordinary common meaning––to live together as husband and wife. When
Congress adopted the statute above cited, it palpably did not have in
mind the archaic definition applicable to some ancient literature or
poetry, but the modern definition and meaning of the word. See cases
cited in 7 Words and Phrases, Perm.Ed. p. 554, et seq. Too, the
observations made by the United States Supreme Court in construing the
statute, while not authoritative as case law, are here pertinent: “The
word is never used in its first [archaic] meaning in a criminal statute;
and its second meaning is that to which its use in this statute has
relation. The context in which it is found, and the manifest evils which
gave rise to the special enactments in regard to ‘cohabitation,’ require
that the word should have the meaning which we have assigned to it.
Bigamy and polygamy might fail of proof for want of direct evidence of
any marriage; but cohabitation with more than one woman, in the sense
proved in this case, was susceptible of the proof here given; and it was
such offense as was here proved that section 3 of the act was intended
to reach,––the exhibition of all the indicia of a marriage, a household,
and a family, twice repeated.”
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