Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

The Supreme Court affirmed Defendant's conviction of distribution of or arranging to distribute a controlled substance, holding that the trial court did not err in denying Defendant's challenge brought under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986) and that sufficient evidence supported the conviction.On appeal, Defendant argued that the State violated his right to equal protection when it used a peremptory strike to remove the only person of color from the jury pool. The trial court denied Defendant's Batson challenge, and the jury subsequently convicted him of drug-related counts. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the trial court did not err in denying Defendant's Batson challenge; and (2) there was sufficient evidence to support Defendant's conviction. View "State v. Aziakanou" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the trial court convicting Defendant of driving under the influence, holding that law enforcement officers' touch of Defendant's vehicle was supported by probable cause and provided an independent source of the evidence.Upon responding to a 911 call complaining of a person trying to enter a private residence, two police officers encountered a Ford Explorer that looked to be connected to the disturbance. One officer touched the hood to assess the temperature of the engine in order to determine how long the vehicle had been there. The other officer reached into the wheel well on two occasions, and both officers testified that the engine felt hot. Appellant argued that the officers' testimony about her engine's temperature should have been excluded at trial. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that, even if the officers' contacts with the vehicle were searches, the automobile exception applied, and the final touch was supported by probable cause. View "State v. Speights" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the district court dismissing Petitioner's post-conviction challenge to his convictions of child sex abuse and other offenses as time-barred under the Post-Conviction Remedies Act (PCRA), Utah Code 78B-9-101-503, holding that Petitioner's arguments on appeal were unavailing.Petitioner filed a petition pursuant to the PCRA the district court for post-conviction relief from his criminal conviction and sentence. The district court granted summary judgment for the State, concluding that the petition was time-barred under the PCRA. Petitioner appealed, arguing that the PCRA's time limitations should be tolled or, alternatively, he can invoke the court's constitutional writ power outside the PCRA. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the PCRA time-barred Petitioner's petition; and (2) Petitioner failed to demonstrate that the application of the time-bar contained in the PCRA to Petitioner's petition violated his rights under the Utah Constitution. View "Patterson v. State" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the court of appeals ruling that the Post-Conviction Remedies Act (PCRA), Utah Code 78B-9-101-110, barred Appellant's claims because they "could have been" brought on appeal, holding that Appellant's claims failed because trial counsel was not ineffective.Appellant was convicted of sexually molesting his daughter. The convictions were affirmed on appeal. Appellant later filed a petition for post-conviction relief, arguing that his trial counsel was ineffective and that his appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to raise ineffectiveness claims on direct appeal. The reviewing court denied relief. The court of appeals affirmed, ruling that the PCRA barred Appellant's claims. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the PCRA barred Appellant's direct claims against his trial counsel; and (2) appellate counsel was not ineffective. View "McCloud v. State" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court reversed the decision of the court of appeals affirming Defendant's conviction of lewdness by a sex offender and vacated the conviction, holding that the court of appeals erred in upholding the district court's admission of other acts evidence.During trial, the State sought to introduce evidence of four prior occasions when Defendant had been accused of exposing and/or stimulating himself in public. The district court admitted the evidence over Defendant's objection, concluding that the doctrine of chances permitted the State to introduce the evidence. The court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) if the doctrine of chances is remain part of this jurisprudence, it needs to be more carefully explained and more precisely employed; and (2) the doctrine of chances was not correctly applied to admit the evidence in this case. View "State v. Richins" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed Defendant's conviction of distributing or arranging to distribute a controlled substance, holding that Defendant's trial counsel was not constitutionally deficient in not requesting a jury instruction pursuant to State v. Long, 721 P.2d 483 (Utah 1986), about the potential unreliability of eyewitness identification.During trial, Defendant's counsel presented a theory of mistaken identification in his opening and closing arguments and cross-examined the prosecution's witnesses about weaknesses in their testimony. On appeal, Defendant argued that his trial counsel's failure to request a Long instruction constituted ineffective assistance of counsel. The court of appeals affirmed, concluding that Long does not apply to "real-time identifications," such as the identification in this case. The Supreme Court vacated the court of appeals' holding that Long did not apply but nevertheless affirmed, holding (1) the court of appeals erred when it ruled that Long applies only to "memory-based" identifications; and (2) a reasonable, competent lawyer could have chosen not to request a Long instruction in this case. View "State v. Hunter" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court vacated Defendant's conviction of accomplice to aggravated robbery, a first degree felony, under a theory of accomplice liability, holding that the trial court gave an erroneous mens rea instruction to which trial counsel should have objected and this failure to object prejudiced Defendant.At issue was a jury instruction detailing the mens rea required to convict under an accomplice-liability theory. On appeal, Defendant argued that the jury instruction was erroneous and that trial counsel was deficient in failing to object to it. The court of appeals affirmed the conviction, concluding that the instructions adequately instructed the jury on accomplice liability for aggravated robbery. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) the jury instruction at issue was erroneous and that trial counsel performed deficiently in failing to object to it; and (2) trial counsel's deficient performance prejudiced Defendant. View "State v. Eyre" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the court of appeals rejecting Defendant's claim for ineffective assistance of counsel, holding that a factfinder may consider extrinsic evidence of the sexual purpose of a person charged with producing a visual depiction of murder.Defendant was convicted of thirty-three counts of child sex crimes, including aggravated sexual abuse of a child and forcible sodomy of a child. On appeal, Defendant argued that the trial counsel was ineffective based on his failure to object to the prosecutor's request that the jury consider Defendant's subjective intentions in deciding whether Exhibits 21 and 22 - two photographs obtained from Defendant's laptop - qualified as child pornography under Utah law. The court of appeals concluded that Defendant had asserted a successful claim for ineffective assistance of counsel with respect to Exhibit 22 but not Exhibit 21 and reversed Defendant's conviction based on Exhibit 22. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that Defendant did not identify a basis for challenging the State's invitation for the jury to consider Defendant's subjective intention in creating an image that qualified as child pornography as a depiction of child nudity for the purpose of sexual arousal under Utah Code 76-5b-103(10)(f). View "State v. Jordan" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court reversed the decision of the court of appeals affirming the judgment of the district court denying Defendant's motion to vacate his felony discharge of a firearm convictions under the doctrine of merger, holding that Utah Code 76-5-203(5)(a) expressly forecloses merger for all offenses described in subsection (1) of the murder statute but does not explicitly extend to the crime of attempted murder.Defendant was convicted of both felony discharge of a firearm and attempted murder. Defendant filed a motion to vacate the felony discharge counts under the doctrine of merger, asserting that the two sets of charges arose out of the "same acts" and were thus subject to merger under Utah Code 76-1-402(1). The district court denied the motion, concluding that it could address concerns regarding evidentiary overlap as a matter of sentencing. The court did so by imposing sentences that were to run concurrently. The court of appeals affirmed on the basis that "the prohibition against a predicate offense merging with murder also prevents that offense from merging with attempted merger." The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the legislature has not explicitly stated its intent to foreclose the general rules of merger as applied to the crime of attempted murder. View "State v. Martinez" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the court of appeals affirming the judgment of the trial court convicting Defendant of two counts of sexual battery, holding that the victim's testimony was materially consistent and sufficient to support Defendant's conviction.Defendant's conviction was based primarily on testimony from the victim. On appeal, Defendant argued that the victim's testimony was so inherently improbable that it could not support a finding of guilt. The court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) a defendant does not need to raise a sufficiency of the evidence claim at a bench trial to preserve the issue for appeal; and (2) the victim's testimony was far from inherently improbable but was, rather, overwhelmingly and materially consistent and sufficient to support a conviction. View "State v. Jok" on Justia Law