Polygamy in Colorado City, Arizona is illegal, has been illegal under state law and the state constitution since Arizona entered the Union, and was practiced openly for most of a century anyway because the town functioned as the headquarters of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Federal prosecution, a civil rights verdict against the local government, the imprisonment of FLDS leader Warren Jeffs, and the court-ordered breakup of the church’s property trust have changed the community significantly since the mid-2000s, though a reduced FLDS presence remains.
Why Polygamy Is Illegal in Arizona
Arizona bans plural marriage at the constitutional level. Article XX of the Arizona Constitution declares that polygamous or plural marriages and polygamous cohabitation “are forever prohibited within this state.”1Center for American Civics. Arizona Constitution
The criminal code enforces that ban. Under Arizona Revised Statutes § 13-3606, a person who has a living spouse and knowingly marries another person commits bigamy, a class 5 felony.2Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 13-3606 – Bigamy Classification Exception A first-time class 5 felony carries a presumptive prison term of 1.5 years, with a mitigated low of six months and an aggravated high of 2.5 years.3Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 13-702 – First Time Felony Offenders Sentencing Definition
The statute recognizes two narrow defenses. The charge does not apply if the former spouse has been absent for five consecutive years without the defendant knowing them to be alive, or if the earlier marriage was formally dissolved by a court.2Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 13-3606 – Bigamy Classification Exception
Religious Belief Does Not Override the Law
The Supreme Court resolved the First Amendment question in 1879. In Reynolds v. United States, the Court held unanimously that laws against polygamy do not infringe the free exercise of religion. The government cannot regulate religious belief, the Court said, but it can prohibit religious practices that violate criminal law. Allowing faith to excuse polygamy “would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself.”4Library of Congress. Reynolds v United States 98 US 145 That ruling still controls.
Why Bigamy Charges Against FLDS Members Are Rare
If polygamy is a felony and Colorado City was built around it, why so few bigamy prosecutions? The answer lies in how FLDS marriages are formed. A typical FLDS household has one legally recognized marriage. The additional wives are joined through “celestial” or “spiritual” ceremonies that carry religious meaning but no legal status under Arizona law.
Bigamy under § 13-3606 requires a person with a living spouse to knowingly marry another person. A spiritual ceremony with no license and no civil solemnization does not meet that element. Prosecutors generally need evidence of an actual marriage license or legal ceremony to bring a bigamy charge, so the statute often cannot reach the relationships that defined life in the community. When FLDS leaders have been convicted, the charges have typically involved sexual assault of minors or financial fraud rather than bigamy itself.
How Utah Handles It Across the Border
Colorado City’s twin town, Hildale, sits across the state line in Utah, and Utah takes a different approach. In 2020, the Utah Legislature passed Senate Bill 102, which reduced bigamy from a felony to an infraction when no other crime is involved. Bigamy accompanied by fraud or coercion remains a third-degree felony, and bigamy that co-occurs with sexual offenses, child abuse, or domestic violence is a second-degree felony.5Utah Legislature. SB0102 Supporters argued the change would make victims more willing to come forward; opponents said it risked normalizing a practice tied to abuse.
The Utah change does nothing to the Arizona rule. Cross the border into Colorado City and bigamy is still a class 5 felony.
Warren Jeffs and the Fall of FLDS Control
The practical turning point for Colorado City was the prosecution of Warren Jeffs. After his father Rulon Jeffs died in 2002, Warren took control of the FLDS church, arranged marriages involving underage girls, expelled male members he viewed as rivals, and reassigned their wives and children. In 2006, the FBI placed him on its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list with a $100,000 reward, following charges in Arizona for sexual conduct with a minor and conspiracy and in Utah for rape as an accomplice.6Federal Bureau of Investigation. FBI Announces New Top Tenner Warren Jeffs
A Nevada traffic stop ended his flight later that year. After proceedings in Utah and Texas, a Texas jury convicted him in 2011 of aggravated sexual assault of a child and sexual assault of a child. His sentence is life plus 20 years, served consecutively. Jeffs still issues directives to followers from prison, but his incarceration gutted the church’s day-to-day authority. Hundreds of members left, and state and federal agencies moved in on long-standing problems the church had kept hidden.
Breaking the Church’s Hold on Property
The FLDS leadership’s most effective instrument of control was not doctrine. It was real estate. For decades, almost every home and lot in Colorado City and Hildale belonged to the United Effort Plan, a communal trust run by church leaders. Residents lived in their houses at the hierarchy’s pleasure. Fall out of favor and you could lose your home with nothing to show for the years you had put into it.
In 2005, the Utah Attorney General petitioned a court to remove the church-appointed trustees, alleging mismanagement and the use of property to punish dissidents. The court suspended the trustees and appointed a special fiduciary.7FindLaw. Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints v Lindberg Over the following years the trust was reformed, lots were subdivided, and deeds began going to individual residents, many of whom had never held title to anything. Formal court oversight ended in 2019, and the trust now operates under an independent seven-member Board of Trustees and a reformed declaration dated October 25, 2006.8United Effort Plan Trust. More Information
Private homeownership did more to loosen the church’s grip on daily life than any criminal case.
The Federal Civil Rights Case Against the Town
In 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice tried a 44-day case proving that Colorado City and Hildale ran their local governments as extensions of the FLDS church. A jury found that the towns and their joint water utility violated the Fair Housing Act by discriminating against non-FLDS residents in housing and utility service.9United States Department of Justice. United States v Town of Colorado City D Ariz
The jury also found the Colorado City Marshal’s Office operated on behalf of a religious organization in violation of the Establishment Clause and denied equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment, with evidence of unlawful stops and arrests directed at people out of favor with church leaders.10United States Department of Justice. United States v Colorado City Court of Appeals Decision Water hookups and building permits were being withheld along religious lines.
The court ordered revised marshal’s office policies, new hiring practices, a police-practices consultant, a mentor for the chief, mandatory civil rights training, and a court-appointed monitor. The towns paid $1,435,000 in damages to nine victims and $165,000 in civil penalties.9United States Department of Justice. United States v Town of Colorado City D Ariz Federal monitoring of the police department continues.
Child Marriage and Clergy Reporting Duties
Polygamy in Colorado City was never a story only about consenting adults. Jeffs was convicted for sexually assaulting children, and the pattern of arranging marriages involving girls as young as 12 was documented at trial.
Arizona now sets the minimum marriage age at 16, allowed only with parental consent or a court emancipation order, and the spouse cannot be more than three years older than the minor. Marriage under 16 is prohibited outright.11Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 25-102 – Consent Required for Marriage of Minors
Arizona law also makes clergy members mandatory reporters of suspected child abuse or neglect. A religious leader who learns of an underage marriage or sexual contact with a minor must report to law enforcement or the Department of Child Safety. The only carve-out is information received in a formal confession carrying a professional obligation of confidentiality.12Child Welfare Information Gateway. Clergy as Mandatory Reporters of Child Abuse and Neglect – Arizona In a community where leaders perform the ceremonies and know the ages, that duty carries real weight.
Where Colorado City Stands Now
Colorado City is no longer the sealed theocratic enclave it was for most of its history. Federal oversight of the police continues. The UEP trust operates under an independent board. Many residents hold private deeds for the first time. Former FLDS members and newcomers with no church ties are now part of the population. Some loyalists still follow Jeffs from prison, and the town is still hours from any major city, but the institutional machinery that sustained open polygamy in Colorado City for nearly a century has been dismantled.