Can someone help me figure this out?

[Barbara Moulton]

An Australian man was married in 1966.

While still married, he got drunk in Arizona in 1978and married an American woman. He had no recollection of doing so.

He divorced the wife he married in 1966 and married a Hawaiian woman in 2006. When he applied to live in the US, this Arizona marriage was revealed and his marriage to the Hawaian woman was declared invalid.

My question is...why?

The "wedding" of 1978 would not have been valid anyway, because he was already married. So why would an invalid wedding have any impact on his marriage of 2006?

I've been scratching my head over this one.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,371265,00.html

[Mamie White]

If the US did not have a record of his marriage in Australia, then they would have recognized the second marriage as legal. Then when he married the
3rd time (a US state) it would have been illegal as far as the US laws. I don't know, I am just blabbing----------------------:laughing

Mamie

[Ryan Scott]

I'm no lawyer, but I think you do have to get a foreign marriage recognized in the US through some official channel. I remember hearing someone talk about the extra hoops they had to go through to do their ceremony in Vancouver when both people were from the US and planned to live in the US.

[Dave McClung]

An Australian man was married in 1966.

While still married, he got drunk in Arizona in 1978and married an American woman. He had no recollection of doing so.

He divorced the wife he married in 1966 and married a Hawaiian woman in 2006. When he applied to live in the US, this Arizona marriage was revealed and his marriage to the Hawaian woman was declared invalid.

My question is...why?

The "wedding" of 1978 would not have been valid anyway, because he was already married. So why would an invalid wedding have any impact on his marriage of 2006?

I've been scratching my head over this one.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,371265,00.html

Barb

As frequently happens when reporters try to describe court cases, they don't understand what happened themselves, so they can't describe it well.

From what I can tell, there are two different legal proceedings involved. The first was an Immigration Hearing -- a person who is not a citizen of the U.S. was seeking to get permission to stay here on the basis that he is married to a U.S. Citizen. In that case, the burden of proof is on him. When the Immigration Service did a search, they found that the records showed that he was married to another woman. Because the applicant had the burden of proof and failed to explain the prior marriage, evidentally his application was denied.

The article indicates that the applicant was also before the Family Court in Hawaii. I would guess that he filed a petition in Family Court to have the Arizona marriage declared to be void. That is probably what prompted the reporter to write the story. There is no indication that the Family Court has acted on his petition -- only that he has presented his argument.

The likely outcome is that the family court will issue a judgment saying that the Arizona marriage is void. Then the applicant will be able to marry the woman from Hawaii. Then he can take the judgment from the Family Court and the marriage license to the Immigration Service and ask that his application be reconsidered. The Immigartion Service will get around to it in 18 months or so.