Justia Utah Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

A police officer filed a citation issued against Appellant for an open container offense in justice court, thus initiating a criminal case against Appellant. After Appellant failed to appear or forfeit bail on her justice court charge, prosecutors filed an information in district court charging Appellant with DUI, an alcohol-restricted driver offense, and an open container violation. Appellant subsequently paid her justice court fine, thus accepting a conviction in justice court on the open container offense. Despite the justice court conviction, prosecutors moved forward on the information filed in the district court. Defendant moved to dismiss. The district court (1) dismissed the open container charge, determining that the Double Jeopardy Clause prohibited a serial prosecution on that charge; but (2) denied Appellant’s motion to dismiss the other two charges, concluding that the charges were not precluded by Utah Code 76-1-403, which adopts a principle of criminal claim preclusion for offenses arising out of a “single criminal episode.” The Supreme Court affirmed the denial of Appellant’s motion to dismiss the remaining two charges, holding that the preclusion principle in section 403 was inapplicable in this case because there was no “prosecuting attorney” involved in Appellant’s first offense. View "State v. Ririe" on Justia Law

Since 1971, a monument displaying a representation of the Ten Commandments tablets has stood in a park owned by the City of Pleasant Grove. In 2003, Summum, a corporation sole and church, offered to donate and erect a “Seven Aphorisms” monument in the park that was similar to the Ten Commandments monument. The City declined Summum’s offer. After unsuccessfully suing in federal court, Summum sued in federal court. The United States Supreme Court concluded that the placement of a monument on public property was a form of government speech not regulated by the Free Speech Clause. Summum subsequently sued in state court, alleging that the City had violated the religious liberty clause of the state Constitution and seeking an injunction requiring the City to display the Seven Aphorisms monument. The district court granted summary judgment for the City. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the religious liberty clause of the Utah Constitution does not require the district court to force the City to permanently display the Seven Aphorisms monument because the neutrality test adopted in Soc’y of Separationists v. Whitehead to determine whether a government action amounts to an unconstitutional appropriation of public money for religious exercise does not apply in the context of public monuments. View "Summum v. Pleasant Grove City" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of first-degree rape. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to a jury instruction misstating the requirement of mens rea as applied to the elements of first-degree rape; and (2) the statutory standard for nonconsent under Utah Code 76-5-406 does not establish the sum and substance of all circumstances amounting to nonconsent but simply prescribes the circumstances in which the legislature forecloses a jury finding of consent as a matter of public policy. The Court also clarified and the standard for granting a defendant’s request for a victim’s medical records under Utah R. Crim. P. 14(b). View "State v. Barela" on Justia Law

Defendant entered a conditional guilty plea to five charges of sexual exploitation of a minor. The charges arose from the discovery of child pornography on Defendant’s laptop computer. Defendant appealed, challenging several of the district court’s pretrial rulings, many of them related to the propriety of law enforcement’s use of the Wyoming Toolkit, a computer program and database used to identify child pornography shared over the Internet with peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing networks. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the district court did not err in denying Defendant’s motion to suppress the evidence of child pornography found on Defendant’s computer, as the government’s use of the Wyoming Toolkit to identify child pornography in files shared on a P2P network is not a search; (2) the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Defendant’s motion to compel discovery of the Wyoming Toolkit; (3) the classifications created by Utah’s sexual exploitation of a minor statute are constitutional, and Defendant lacked standing to challenge the constitutionality of the statute’s purported disparate treatment of prosecutors and criminal defense attorneys; and (4) the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Defendant’s motion in limine to exclude expert testimony related to the Wyoming Toolkit. View "State v. Roberts" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of murder, aggravated robbery, and unlawful distribution of a controlled substance. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it admitted Y-STR DNA evidence linking Defendant to the murder weapon; (2) the trial court did not err when it refused to admit the entire transcript or video of Defendant’s second police interview after a State witness testified to portions of the interview at trial; (3) defense counsel did not render ineffective assistance in his cross-examination of one of the detectives who conducted the second interview; (4) the trial court did not err when it admitted an officer’s testimony about the frequency of drug-related crimes; (5) the State did not engage in prosecutorial misconduct during closing argument; (6) the evidence was sufficient to sustain convictions for murder and aggravated robbery; and (7) Defendant failed to demonstrate cumulative error that undermined confidence in the verdict. View "State v. Jones" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of murder with an enhancement for criminal street gang activity, obstruction of justice, and possession or use of a dangerous weapon by a restricted person. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the trial court (1) correctly denied Defendant’s motion for directed verdict on the murder and obstruction-of-justice charges; (2) did not abuse its discretion by permitting the State to present gang-related evidence during the guilt phase of the trial; and (3) did not abuse its discretion by dismissing as untimely Defendant’s constitutional challenge to the gang-enhancement statute. View "State v. Gonzalez" on Justia Law

At issue in this case was the applicability of the “attenuation” exception to the exclusionary rule to a fact pattern involving an unlawful detention leading to the discovery of an arrest warrant followed by a search incident to arrest. Defendant in this case entered a conditional plea to drug-related charges, reserving the right to appeal the denial of his motions to suppress and reconsider. The court of appeals affirmed under the attenuation exception to the exclusionary rule. After noting that the lower courts are in “disarray” in their application of the attenuation doctrine to the outstanding warrant scenario and the lack of direction from the U.S. Supreme Court on the matter, the Supreme Court concluded (1) the attenuation exception is limited to cases involving intervening acts of a defendant’s free will, as in a confession or consent to search; and (2) because this case involved no independent act of a defendant’s free will, the attenuation doctrine was not implicated, and Defendant was entitled to suppression of the evidence secured in the search incident to his arrest. View "State v. Strieff" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was found guilty of one count of murder and two counts of aggravated robbery. Upon sentencing Defendant, the trial court failed to comply with Utah R. Crim. P. 22(c)(1) by not informing Defendant of his right to appeal and of the thirty-day deadline for filing a notice of appeal. Over two years later, Defendant filed a motion seeking reinstatement of his right to appeal. The trial court denied the motion. The court of appeals reversed, concluding that because neither the trial court nor defense counsel informed Defendant of the thirty-day deadline, Defendant had a valid claim for reinstatement of the right to appeal. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that claims for reinstatement of the right to appeal are subject to harmless error review, and the court of appeals in this case erred by declining to apply harmless error analysis. Remanded. View "State v. Collins" on Justia Law

In 2014, the City of Draper passed and adopted a Resolution that levied a tax on property located within the Traverse Ridge Special Service District. Petitioners, five residents, collected certified voter signatures and asked the City to refer the Resolution to voters of the District. The City rejected the referendum petition, asserting that the tax levy was a nonreferable administrative action. Petitioners filed a petition for writ of extraordinary relief. The Supreme Court granted the relief sought, holding (1) the Resolution was properly referable to the voters because it was legislative in nature; and (2) the City’s constitutional challenge to the subjurisdictional referendum statute failed. View "Mawhinney v. Draper City" on Justia Law

In 2011, the Utah legislature passed S.B. 165, which altered the requirements for placing an initiative on the ballot. Appellants in this case were sponsors of a local initiative petition. After attempting, unsuccessfully, to place the initiative on the ballot, Appellants filed suit against the Lieutenant Governor and Salt Lake County Clerk (collectively, the State), seeking a declaration that two of the amended provisions of S.B. 165 violated the right to initiative and uniform operation of laws provisions of the Utah Constitution and the Free Speech Clause of the United States Constitution. The district court denied Appellants’ claims. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the challenged amendments do not violate the Utah Constitution’s guarantees of the right of the people to initiate legislation or the uniform operation of the law, and further, do not violate the federal First Amendment. View "Cook v. Bell" on Justia Law