2025 Bills Decreasing or Repealing Penalties.

H.B. 94 Exemptions from Dangerous Weapons Provisions exempts those acting under a farm custom slaughter license from the crimes of felony discharge of a firearm and discharge of a dangerous weapon from a vehicle.

HB 287 Stalking Amendments creates an exception to the stalking statute for business owners engaging in conduct "reasonable and necessary" to protect their interest, as long as the conduct is not directed toward a cohabitant.

We worked on HB 353 Criminal Code Amendments with Rep. Wilcox for the last year. After hearing our testimony time and again of how many criminal offenses get added each year, he asked several groups to bring him ideas of offenses that are used so we could repeal or reduce them. The bill ended up only reducing the penalty for using a name without authorization in a charity solicitation from a class B misdemeanor to an infraction and repealing the offense of abuse of a flag, but it also requires state agencies to review all criminal offenses they enforce every three years and recommend which should be clarified or repealed, or if the penalties should be reduced or increased. We support the effort to be more cognizant of the kinds of penalty bills that get passed, but in the face of all of the other bills increasing penalties or creating new offenses this year, repealing one or two charges that aren’t used doesn’t really address the issue of overcriminalization. We hope to make more progress in this area in future years, particularly in how bills that modify penalties are drafted and legislated. HB 353 was not signed by Governor Cox, and was very nearly vetoed, not because he opposes this effort, but because he thinks the state can do more to coordinate criminal justice efforts. He is creating a criminal justice task force to look at these issues, although we are not confident that the membership will promote very many changes to the current system, seeing as how they all independently voted to support most of the legislation this year increasing penalties. See the Governor's executive order creating the task force here: Executive Order 2025-02 Enhancing Utah's Criminal Justice Strategy.

H.B. 376 National Guard Amendments allows military chaplains to solemnize a marriage.

HB 419 Real Estate Revisions requires the Division of Real Estate to prioritize the investigation of criminal allegations over others and to use a risk-based approach based on potential harm. It also removes a class A misdemeanor penalty for violating the Real Estate chapter, which was enhanceable to a third degree felony.

HB 477 School Trespass Amendments narrows the class B misdemeanor offense of criminal trespass on a school to exclude LEA offices and individuals giving public comment in a local school board meeting that comply with relevant restrictions.