Courts Not Obligated to Follow Laws Which Produce Absurd Results In Utah, “[A] court should not follow the literal language of a statute if its plain meaning works an absurd result” because the Legislature “cannot, in every instance, be counted on to have said what it meant or to have meant what it said.” State in the interest of Z.C.,…
A Statute Can Be Held Inapplicable if It is Impermissibly Vague Under Utah constitutional law, a court will refuse to apply a statute if it is “impermissibly vague.” A statute is impermissibly vague if it either (1) fails to provide people of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to understand what conduct it prohibits or (2) authorizes or even encourages arbitrary…
Today in the Fourth District Court in American Fork Benjamin David Rettig, only 23 years old, plead guilty to the 2009 aggravated kidnapping and aggravated murder of Kay Mortensen of Payson Utah. You may remember this case from the fact that originally Kay Mortensen’s son and daughter-in-law were arrested on the charges and were in jail for five (5) months. …
Criminal Charges Don’t Always Come Immediately In many criminal cases in Utah, a criminal defendant is not charged immediately after a supposed violation of a law. Salt Lake, Ogden, Provo, and other law enforcement officers will arrive at the scene of a reported criminal incident and not issue any citations or make arrests before he or she leaves. This type…
Defense Attorneys Protect Your Fourth Amendment Rights One of our basic constitutional and human rights is to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures without a warrant issued under oath by a magistrate. Over the many years of our Republic the law of search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment has changed significantly and there are a myriad of exceptions…
Salt Lake City Criminal Defense When criminal charges have been filed against someone there are typically witnesses on both sides of the charges. The State will have its witnesses and the defense will have its witnesses. In Utah, there is a very strict law against trying to influence a witness to testify in a certain way. Witness tampering is a…
Most Utah Criminal Cases Don’t Go to Trial There are large amounts of criminal offenses one can commit in Utah. They range from the serious, such as murder, to the less serious, such as a zoning ordinance violation of failing to water one’s lawn. Criminal cases for nearly any criminal charge seldom go all the way to a trial. Most…
4th Amendment Protections Continue to be Eroded The Fourth Amendment has yet again been assaulted and torn down by another court this past week. The Fourth Amendment was passed to protect citizens from the long arm of the state and to ensure police take proper measures without violating citizens’ privacy rights. The US Supreme Court recently expanded the scope of…
Police Power Enlarged by Court The Indiana Supreme Court ruled in Barnes v. State, a domestic violence case, that a police officer can enter any home for any reason. Homeowners can’t do anything to stop the officer from entering. This ruling is not only in direct conflict with the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution, it goes against hundreds of…
Many Marriages End Because of Third Parties All marriages have difficult times. It is very difficult for some people to work through martial issues. The difficulties may be too much for people to handle causing them to end the marriage through a divorce. Dealing with marital problems privately can be very difficult. Dealing with marital problems in the public spotlight…
