The five-spouse, reality TV-famous “Sister Wives” family that fled Utah after being placed under criminal investigation defended their landmark victory against the state’s anti-polygamy law Thursday.

The Brown family won a federal court ruling decriminalizing polygamous cohabitation in 2013. State officials appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, arguing the family never faced possible prosecution and, therefore, has no standing to sue.

The standing dispute featured prominently into the arguments Thursday, according to reporters in the courtroom. "Judges hammered both sides on whether [family members] face prosecution," KSTU-TV journalist Ben Winslow reported on Twitter. "That seems to be the sticking point."

Jonathan Turley, the Browns' lead attorney on the case, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but in a pre-hearing post on his blog wrote the case potentially could reach the Supreme Court.

Though the case is nationally prominent, Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes appears not to relish the spotlight it carries. He smiled, nodded and abruptly walked away last year when asked by U.S. News about his office's decision to appeal.



The law challenged by the Browns, a fundamentalist Mormon family, says "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."

In his 2013 ruling, U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups found the law unconstitutionally violated the Browns' First Amendment right to freely practice their religion and that, in light of the 2003 Supreme Court decision shielding consensual same-sex sodomy from state laws, it also violates the Constitution’s Due Process Clause.

Kody Brown only is legally married to his first wife, Meri, though he has children and lives with each of the four women. Waddoups did not strike down Utah's ban on bigamy, or seeking legal recognition for multiple marriages.

Though the law technically bans adulterous living situations, Waddoups wrote "[a]dultery, including adulterous cohabitation, is not prosecuted. Religious cohabitation, however, is subject to prosecution at the limitless discretion of local and State prosecutors, despite a general policy not to prosecute religiously motivated polygamy.”

Inspiring the Browns to flee to Nevada, local prosecutors publicly acknowledged their criminal probe and praised the Browns for making their job easy by “admitting to felonies on national TV.” The state said in a court filing ahead of Thursday's hearing, however, it would not prosecute the family.



The case only requests decriminalization of consenting adults living in polygamous families, making it more analagous to the 2003 case, Lawrence v. Texas, that legalized physical relationships among gay people than to more recent cases allowing for same-sex marriage.