I don’t blame you if you just recoiled reading this title; I did too. This is by far one of the grosser miscarriages of justice I’ve seen this week.
A woman in Utah was stunned when a judge ordered her to give her ex-husband a book of nude photographs during their divorce proceedings. The photos were a “boudoir style” set of images and the ex requested them as part of their divorce.
The woman, Lindsay Marsh, said she got the pictures taken early into their marriage and wrote loving, intimate messages in the album for her then-husband. When she filed for divorce in April of 2021 after the pair spent 25 years together, her ex, Chris Marsh, decided he wanted to keep the album “for the memories.”
“It’s violating and it’s incredibly embarrassing and humiliating,” Lindsay said.
“The only way I can hopefully protect someone else from going through the same situation is to tell my story and expose that these are the types of things that he thinks are OK,” she continued.
Marsh was shocked when her ex asked for the pictures and, presumedly, even MORE shocked when Judge Michael Edwards sided with her ex.
Edwards told Marsh she could take the book to the photographer and have a copy made with her body edited out; that was this asshole’s solution.
Marsh tried to play ball, but the photographer refused to do so, so the judge ruled in August that Marsh had to give the book to another person who would edit the images.
“That person is to do whatever it takes to modify the pages of the pictures so that any photographs of [Lindsay Marsh] in lingerie or that sort of thing or even without clothing are obscured and taken out,” Edwards wrote in the ruling, which was shared with The Salt Lake Tribune.
The words, he wrote, would be “maintained for memory’s sake.”
Marsh was horrified to learn that she would have to give the book to a complete stranger now and even double-checked with the judge’s clerk to make sure she didn’t misunderstand the decision. She recalls saying, “The judge has ordered me to give nude photos of my body to a third party that I don’t know without my consent?”
Thankfully, the original photographer found out what was going on and changed her mind. Still, the whole thing is so violating.
Lindsay said, “Because these are things that were sensual and loving that I wrote to my husband that I loved. You’re my ex-husband now.”
She has to hold the originals until December in case the ex “objects” to the edits. After which, she’s going to burn them in a fire.
Chris Marsh insisted to the Tribune that the books were full of memories and were not “inappropriate”.
“I cherish the loving memories we had for all those years as part of normal and appropriate exchanges between a husband and wife, and sought to preserve that in having the inscriptions,” he said.
A criminal law professor at University of Utah said that the case was “very strange”.
“In my opinion, the judge here has just made a mistake in the balancing of interests and has tipped things too far in one direction,” Paul Cassell said.
I, for one, hope she can (and does) appeal.