Utah Law Developments

• Jurisdiction: Utah,United States
• Citation: Vol. 34 No. 1 Pg. 26
• Publication year: 2021
• Pages: 26
• topic: Constitutional Law,Family Law,Criminal Law,Civil Procedure

Utah Law Developments Vol. 34 No. 1 Pg. 26 Utah Bar Journal February, 2021

January, 2020

Appellate Highlights

By Rodney R. Parker, Dani Cepernich, Robert Cummings, Nathanael Mitchell, Adam Pace, and Andrew Roth

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following appellate cases of interest were recently decided by the Utah Supreme Court, Utah Court of Appeals, and United States Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. The following summaries have been prepared by the authoring attorneys listed above, who are solely responsible for their content.

UTAH SUPREME COURT

In re Adoption of B.H., 2020 UT 64 (Sept. 16, 2020)

Citing the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, a biological father argued Utah lacked jurisdiction over a petition to terminate his parental rights, because the child was born in Montana. The district court had jurisdiction over the termination of parental rights because the action was filed under the Adoption Act and, as a result, was not governed by the UCCJEA. The supreme court went on to hold that a material deficiency in a form required by the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children does not divest the district court of subject matter jurisdiction.

State v. Stricklan, 2020 UT 65 (Oct. 15, 2020)

In this criminal appeal, the Utah Supreme Court addressed a line of Utah cases, including State v. Webb, 779 P.2d 1108 (Utah 1989) and State v. Ramsey, 782 P.2d 480, 484 (Utah 1989), which suggests that a conviction based solely on an uncorroborated out-of-court statement cannot be sustained on appeal. The defendant was convicted of sexual abuse of a child despite the victim recanting her previous accusation on the stand. A majority of the court concluded that the rule articulated in Webb and Ramsey was inapplicable, since there was other evidence available for the jury to adequately evaluate both the victim’s original accusation and her subsequent recantation.

Regardless, the majority noted it would likely “scrub” the Webb/Ramsey rule from Utah jurisprudence if asked, since the true focus of any criminal appeal alleging insufficient evidence must be the evidence presented to the jury, not the applicability of a bright-line rule. A lengthy dissent by Chief Justice Durrant, joined by Justice Himonas, argued Webb and Ramsey applied and the conviction simply could not be sustained on the evidence presented.

State v. Marquina, 2020 UT 66 (Oct. 15, 2020)

On certiorari, the court affirmed the court of appeals’ decision that the trial court did not plainly err in its handling of the State’s reports of a juror who fell asleep at trial. However, the court clarified that when a trial court receives a reliable report of a sleeping or inattentive juror, the court should respond in proportion to the report, which at a minimum requires “the court to glean any facts relevant to determining whether a juror has missed a portion of the trial, and to make an informed decision about whether the juror remains qualified to decide the case.”

The court stated that, going forward, a response that is not commensurate with the seriousness of the information before the court would constitute plain error.

Arave v. Pineview West Water Co., 2020 UT 67 (Oct....