Sim Gill: tackling the challenges of public service.

• Author: Haraldsen, Tom
• Position: In the Spotlight

To say the first three-plus years of Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill's term have been adventurous would be an understatement. Headlines from 2013 alone illustrate the challenges his office has faced--internal problems in the West Valley City Police Department, including potential criminal charges in the death of Danielle Willard by West Valley City narcotics detectives; and the investigation into former Utah Attorney General John Swallow's comings and eventual goings--each of them front-page and lead-story-at-10 p.m. events. But for the Kearns High and University of Utah graduate who The Salt Lake Tribune named as its "Utahn of the Year" for 2013, it's all part of the job.

"It's been challenging, invigorating in terms of the opportunity it's given this office to serve the community." Gill says. "It takes an incredible collaborative effort, working with great partners, to do what we do. As a public servant and a prosecutor, it comes to you and you handle it the best way you can. Overall, I think the last three years have been very successful."

Besides the Willard and Swallow cases, Gill's office has handled a wide variety of other criminal cases, not to mention a plethora of cases on the civil side. He says, "It really is reflective of the complexity of a district attorney's office--a public institution serving its community on a diversity of subjects."

Gill's calling to law and eventually public service was formed somewhat from his childhood in a small village in India. He says he witnessed a neighbor being wrongly accused of a theft, a man who was subsequently arrested and beaten. It left him questioning who watches over those assigned to protect the public's safety--one reason he had no compunction decades later when he ruled that West Valley City cops weren't in danger when they shot Willard. Elements of that case are still...