Tommie Rae Brown v. Deanna Brown-Thomas, et al.

On June 17, 2020, the South Carolina Supreme Court declared the 2001 marriage between petitioner Tommie Rae Brown and the late entertainer James Brown void ab initio for bigamy, articulating a new rule that a person in a void marriage must obtain a judicial declaration of its invalidity before he or she may seek remarriage. The South Carolina Supreme Court applied this new rule retroactively to petitioner’s 2001 marriage to Brown, but not to petitioner’s 1997 marriage to a Pakistani national in Texas, which a South Carolina court had declared void ab initio for bigamy in 2004. The questions presented are: I. Whether requiring the class of persons in marriages that are void ab initio to obtain a judicial decree of invalidity before remarrying violates the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, and particularly violates the fundamental right to marry. II. Whether allowing non-parties to attack the in rem order annulling petitioner’s 1997 marriage violates long-settled precedent of the Court and the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, and particularly violates the fundamental right to marry. III. Whether applying a decision affecting the fundamental right of marriage neither fully retroactively nor purely prospectively violates precedent of the Court, as to which the courts of appeals are in conflict.