Utah

In a year that fea­tured mas­sive cam­paign adver­tis­ing attempt­ing to por­tray legal reform­ers as respon­si­ble for increas­es in vio­lent crime, can­di­dates com­mit­ted to crim­i­nal legal reform or who promised to con­tin­ue statewide mora­to­ria on exe­cu­tions post­ed key elec­tion wins in the 2022 midterm elec­tions. Defying a pre-elec­tion nar­ra­tive fore­cast­ing a back­lash against pro­gres­sive pros­e­cu­tors and con­ven­tion­al wis­dom that fear of crime dri­ves polit­i­cal out­comes, reform pros­e­cu­tors were re-elect­ed to office and gained new footholds in coun­ties across the country.

A Utah judge has grant­ed a new tri­al to death-row pris­on­er Douglas Carter, find­ing that pros­e­cu­tors know­ing­ly with­held from the defense evi­dence that police coerced false tes­ti­mo­ny from two key wit­ness­es, coached them to lie, pro­vid­ed them ​“thou­sands of dol­lars in finan­cial ben­e­fits” to impli­cate Carter, and threat­ened them with depor­ta­tion and loss of their son if they did not cooperate.

A high-pro­file Republican-led effort to abol­ish the death penal­ty in Utah has failed in com­mit­tee by a sin­gle vote. State rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the House Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee vot­ed 6 – 5 on February 14, 2022 not to advance a pro­pos­al that would repeal Utah’s death penal­ty and replace it with a new non-cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing alter­na­tive of 45 years to life.

Two con­ser­v­a­tive Republican leg­is­la­tors, both for­mer sup­port­ers of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, have intro­duced leg­is­la­tion that would end death-penal­ty pros­e­cu­tions in Utah.

When Utah County Attorney David Leavitt (pic­tured) announced on September 8, 2021 that his office would no longer pur­sue the death penal­ty, his deci­sion to do so was emblem­at­ic of a broad­er shift in con­ser­v­a­tive think­ing on the death penal­ty. The Republican dis­trict attor­ney from ​“a deeply con­ser­v­a­tive” coun­ty that gave Donald Trump a 41-per­cent­age-point mar­gin of vic­to­ry in the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion joined what the Wall Street Journal describes as ​“a grow­ing move­ment of con­ser­v­a­tives across the coun­try push­ing for an end to cap­i­tal punishment.”

New pub­lic opin­ion polls show that, con­sis­tent with nation­al trends, sup­port for the death penal­ty is declin­ing in the con­ser­v­a­tive strong­holds of Utah and Oklahoma.

Four Utah dis­trict attor­neys, rep­re­sent­ing coun­ties that com­prise 57.5% of the state’s pop­u­la­tion, have urged the state leg­is­la­ture and Utah Governor Spencer Cox to enact leg­is­la­tion to repeal and replace Utah’s death penalty.

Efforts to end the death penal­ty in Utah edged for­ward on September 8, 2021 as two Republican leg­is­la­tors revealed plans to intro­duce leg­is­la­tion to ​“repeal and replace” the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment law and the pros­e­cut­ing attor­ney in the state’s sec­ond most pop­u­lous coun­ty declared that he would no longer seek the death penal­ty in future cases.

A for­mer Utah defense lawyer has received a $250,000 set­tle­ment after suing Weber County for alleged­ly fir­ing him in retal­i­a­tion for his pub­lic crit­i­cism of the county’s refusal to prop­er­ly fund a death-row prisoner’s cap­i­tal appeal and its inter­fer­ence in the case.

A fed­er­al dis­trict court judge has issued an order mov­ing clos­er to tri­al a law­suit filed against a Utah coun­ty for the alleged retal­ia­to­ry fir­ing of a lawyer who had pub­licly crit­i­cized the coun­ty for refus­ing to ade­quate­ly fund his client’s death-penal­ty appeal.