76-7-102 Incest

The Utah Criminal Code was adopted in 1973, it included a new provision for Incest under Utah Code 76-7-102. This codified incest as a felony offense. It was added onto the list of registrable offenses in 2001 with the introduction and passage of H.B. 237 Sex Offender Registry. This change expanded the state's sex offender registry laws and was part of a larger trend in the U.S. toward stricter registration requirements, driven by public outcry following high-profile cases of violence against children.

H.B. 237 broadened  the range of offenses that required registration, to capture a wider range of behaviors that legislators considered to be a threat to children. Increased media attention on child safety and the tragic stories of victims created public pressure to protect communities from sex offenders. This led state legislatures to pass laws that added more offenses to the list of registrable crimes, aiming to increase public safety and awareness.

In June 1998, John Daniel Kingston, leader of the polygamist LDS sect  based in Utah, commonly known as the Kingston Group or "the Order," was arrested for felony child abuse. [1] During the trial, new light was shed on the secretive world of polygamy and allegations of incest and child abuse within the Kingston clan. The case fueled public public conversation in Utah about the state's approach to fundamentalist polygamy, a practice long outlawed by the mainstream Latter-day Saints church. The case became about incest as Kingston's daughter testified about the inter-family relationship.[2] In June 1999, a member of the Kingston clan was convicted of incest with his 16-year old niece. At the time of the trial, there were approximately 20,000 to 30,000 polygamists with roughly 1,000 members in the Kingston clan.[3]

With renewed public attention on polygamy and incest triggered by the legal proceedings against the Kingston Group, several lawsuits and reports had detailed accounts of coerced, underage, and incestuous marriages within Utah-based fundamentalist sects.

The court's decision spurred legislative action to amend the sex offender registration statute the following legislative session, which the Utah Legislature subsequently updated in 2001 to include 76-7-102 Incest, 76-5-417 Enticing a Minor and 76-5-420 Lewdness Involving a Child, as a registrable offenses. 

In 2009, the law was expanded to include acts of artificial insemination. This change was prompted by cases where incestuous relationships using artificial insemination could not be prosecuted under the previous version of the law, which focused on the act of sexual intercourse.