Courts

Recent rulings from Utah's appellate courts, and federal rulings in Utah cases, in plain English.

Oct. 19, 2026 · U.S. Supreme Court

U.S. Supreme Court won't take Utah's appeal in a juvenile life sentence case

The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 19 denied the state's petition to review State v. Mullins. That leaves in place the Utah Supreme Court's November 2025 decision throwing out the life-without-parole sentence of Morris Mullins, who was 17 when he killed a 78-year-old woman in her home in 2001.

The Utah court held that the sentencing judge's comments about whether Mullins could change created a significant risk that the judge had not properly weighed his youth, which a line of U.S. Supreme Court cases decided after his sentencing requires before a juvenile can get life without parole. It ordered a new sentencing hearing. It did not make Mullins eligible for parole, and it rejected his argument that life without parole is always unconstitutional for a juvenile.

Sources: U.S. Supreme Court docket No. 25-1115; State v. Mullins, 2025 UT 57.

Oct. 22, 2026 · Court of Appeals

No body camera video, but the search stands

During a late-night traffic stop in Cedar City, a detective saw a rolled plastic baggie with what looked like crystalline residue sticking out of an open cigarette pack on the passenger's lap. His body camera was not recording at that moment. The passenger, Saunders, argued the evidence should be suppressed because it was not obvious the baggie held anything illegal and because no video backed up the detective.

The Court of Appeals affirmed. The detective's training, the passenger's nervousness, his refusal to look in the center console and word from dispatch that he was under Adult Probation and Parole supervision added up to probable cause, and certainty is not required. The missing video did not require suppression or force the judge to disbelieve the detective. The law lets a judge give a jury an instruction against the State when an officer fails to turn on a body camera, but even if that law applied at a suppression hearing, the court said, missing footage would not automatically make an officer's testimony unreliable. The October opinion replaces one the court issued in July.

Sources: State v. Saunders, 2026 UT App 161; Utah Court of Appeals opinions.

Oct. 29, 2026 · Court of Appeals

New trial after jurors heard a charge was only a misdemeanor

Police found methamphetamine in or near Blair's tackle box in the garage of the house where he lived with his son. Blair admitted the tackle box and the marijuana were his but denied the meth, and his son later pleaded guilty to possessing the same methamphetamine. At trial, the judge told the jury the marijuana charge was a class A misdemeanor, and the prosecutor commented on how light the consequences of a conviction would be.

The Court of Appeals held both were obvious errors. The judge's remark alone likely would not have mattered. Together with the prosecutor's comments, in a case built on constructive possession of drugs found while Blair sat handcuffed in a police car, the errors were harmful. The court vacated the methamphetamine conviction, ordered a new trial and gave the trial court guidance on prior-conviction evidence.

Sources: State v. Blair, 2026 UT App 162; Utah Court of Appeals opinions.

Oct. 8, 2026 · Court of Appeals

A wrong label in a presentence report was worth fixing

Weber pleaded no contest to aggravated child abuse for starving a 9-year-old boy until he needed hospitalization, and to a misdemeanor count for tying him up. The presentence report mislabeled the misdemeanor as aggravated. Nobody objected, and the judge, who knew the correct charge, sentenced him to prison.

The Court of Appeals held his lawyers were ineffective for not getting the label corrected. The mistake did not change the sentence, but a parole board reading the report later could misjudge what he admitted, and that risk was enough. The court sent the case back only to fix the report and rejected his other claims, including that his lawyer should have argued harder for probation and should have discussed suppressing text messages with him before he took the plea.

Sources: State v. Weber, 2026 UT App 152; Utah Court of Appeals opinions.

Sept. 17, 2026 · Utah Supreme Court

Kayaker who floated past a ranger's order loses his win on appeal

On a Pioneer Day afternoon on the Provo River, a uniformed state park ranger on life jacket duty told Joshua Nelson and two friends to get out of the water and warned it was their last chance before jail. They kept floating, and the ranger later found them stopped behind bushes. Nelson was convicted of failing to stop at an officer's command.

The Court of Appeals ruled his trial lawyer was ineffective for not asking the judge to dismiss for lack of proof that he fled to avoid arrest. The Utah Supreme Court reversed. The warning about jail and the evidence that he hid were enough for a jury, so the motion would have failed. The court did not decide what "arrest" means in the fleeing law, which has since been amended, and sent the case back for the Court of Appeals to decide his remaining argument.

Sources: State v. Nelson, 2026 UT 33; Utah Supreme Court opinions.