Utah News Dispatch
Utah governor signs bill requiring Salt Lake County DA to track time spent on criminal cases
The Salt Lake County District Attorney building in Salt Lake City is pictured on Wednesday, January 3, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
On the last day before his midnight deadline to sign or veto bills from the 2024 legislative session, Gov. Spencer Cox signed a final batch of bills Thursday — including one that stirred drama during the Legislature’s final night.
Despite protests from Democrats calling it a political “attack” on an elected official from blue Salt Lake City, the GOP-controlled Utah Legislature passed SB273, a bill to require the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office to track time spent on criminal cases and provide an annual, written report to a legislative committee.
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Some lawmakers who supported the bill said it was in response to “crimes not being prosecuted” in Utah’s most populated county. However, SB273’s sponsor, Senate Budget Chairman Jerry Stevenson, R-Layton, said in the bill’s Senate committee hearing on Feb. 27 that he’d “talked with some folks that felt” the time taken to prosecute cases has been “abused.” He argued cases shouldn’t take years to prosecute, and if cases are “dragged out” they can unduly impact lives.
Here are key public safety issues Utah lawmakers tackled this session
Cox said during his March PBS news conference on Thursday morning that he planned to sign the bill because of “concerns” around some policies at the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s office that can lead to some “criminals being released very quickly (and) charges not being followed through.”
Cox said his office has been in touch with the Salt Lake County Council about concerns around the bill and whether it will actually solve any problems, but he noted the bill won’t take effect until July of next year, so lawmakers have time during the 2025 legislation to make changes.
“We don’t want to put an unnecessary burden that doesn’t actually help or solve the problem,” Cox said. “I think what you’ll see over the course of the year is the Legislature working together with my office and the county, as well, to figure out what exactly is it that’s a concern and how do we get the information to solve it.”
Gill, while testifying on the bill before the Senate Judiciary Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee in February, said he understood the bill’s “rationale” — but he said he could already tell lawmakers what the reporting requirements would find.
Gov. Spencer Cox speaks at his monthly news conference in Salt Lake City on Thursday, March 21, 2024. (Pool photo by Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune)
“I can assure you we do not have the appropriate number of resources to actually adequately do our job,” Gill said, questioning whether the Legislature, once it gets confirmation from the bill’s reporting requirements, would then act to “fill that deficit” or require counties to do so.
Gill said he simply doesn’t have enough prosecutors to prosecute all the crimes happening in Salt Lake County.
“I have somewhere around 20,000 active cases,” he said. “We’re prosecuting over 160 homicides, over 1,300 (sexual violence) cases, over 3,300 domestic violence cases and 11,000 other general felony cases.”
If the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office is required to track time spent on cases in 15 minute increments, like SB273 does, “that creates an undue burden,” Gill said, which will compound issues by forcing him to devote employee resources to meet that mandate.
In a March 4 post on X, Gill questioned whether lawmakers would run a bill to “fund 30-40 prosecutors we are short” as well as their support staff. Further, he asked lawmakers to devote funding to fix “our broken mental health system, affordable housing & also can you fund the jail beds that we need as well?”
In the meantime, would you run a bill to fund 30-40 prosecutors we are short + support staff? Fund, our broken mental health system, affordable housing & also can you fund the jail beds that we need as well? Since, I know you care so much about public safety.
Let’s do it! https://t.co/t8sHZ9OlHl
— Sim Gill (@SimGillDA) March 4, 2024
When asked whether the bill was a political dig, Cox told reporters Utah lawmakers this year funded “more investments going into Salt Lake City than any time in our state’s history.” He pointed to the over $50 million they put toward homeless emergency services this year, along with committing about $2 billion in future investments to attract a Major League Baseball team and a National Hockey League to the capital city, as well as redevelop the city’s west side.
“There’s deep concern about what we’ve seen with some of the policies impacting homelessness, crime, in parts of the city,” Cox said. “So I think it’s fair for (lawmakers) to want to receive information about decisions that are being made and why those decisions are being made — especially if that kind of investment is going to be made at the state level.”
A provision of SB273 goes as far as allowing the governor to recommend a “replacement prosecutor” to the Utah Supreme Court if he finds the Salt Lake County district attorney has “failed to prosecute crimes adequately.” The Utah Supreme Court could then appoint a replacement prosecutor.
The Salt Lake County district attorney is an elected position — chosen by Salt Lake County voters.
Asked about that power given to him and the Utah Supreme Court, Cox said that’s a provision of the bill “we’ll certainly be looking at over the course of the year.”
“That’s a responsibility that I would take very seriously,” he said, adding, “I believe elections have consequences. And so just because I disagree or don’t like what someone else is doing, that’s not grounds for recommending a replacement. That would only be used in the case of corruption or something that is more than just political.”
Other bills signed
Cox also signed several other noteworthy bills on Thursday before his midnight deadline. They included:
- HB374 provides a plan for Utah’s energy policy, considering attributes in this priority order: adequate, reliable, dispatchable, affordable, sustainable, secure and clean.
- SB161 allows the state to buy the Intermountain Power Plant coal generators to prevent its retirement.
- HB410 allows the state to purchase the Utah San Rafael State Energy Lab, a research lab in Emery County.
- SB211, a “generational” water planning bill sponsored by Senate President Stuart Adams and House Speaker Mike Schultz, allowing Utah to look beyond its own state borders to create water agreements with other states or countries to spur construction of new infrastructure.
- SB268 allows cities to create a new type of housing project area, called a First Home Investment Zone, that can use tax increment financing (or future tax revenue from growth) to finance infrastructure or lower the cost of land and therefore lower the cost of housing.
- SB150 adopts Utah’s own version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which allows Utahns to challenge government regulations they believe interfere with their “sincerely held” religious beliefs.
- HB430, funds a pilot program to increase public transit ridership and service in high-growth areas.
- HB538 allows state elected officials and some state employees to ask the state’s Division of Technology Services to scrub personal identifying information from the internet.
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