2025 Bills Increasing or Expanding Penalties.

HB 13 Sexual Extortion Amendments adds the threat to distribute a counterfeit intimate image to the crime of sexual extortion.

HB 19 Child Labor Amendments was an interim bill that creates enhancements for repeat child labor violations. A first offense is a class B misdemeanor, this bill makes it a class A misdemeanor on a second offense and a third degree felony on a third or subsequent. While ideally we would want input on all penalty bills, this one was not high on our priority list.

HB 22 Prostitution Offense Amendments was an interim bill. This bill separates existing prostitution-related offenses into separate offenses based on the ages of the individuals involved and provides new penalties for child offenders of certain prostitution-related offenses that are based on the age of the child offender. Specifically, the bill: 

• creates a second degree felony offense of patronizing a prostituted individual who is a child, the level of which changes if the actor is a minor

• creates a class A misdemeanor for entering or remaining in a place of prostitution, enhanceable to a third degree felony on a third or subsequent offense

• creates a class A misdemeanor for sexual solicitation by an actor offering compensation to an adult in exchange for sexual activity, enhanceable to a third degree felony on a third or subsequent offense

• creates a second degree felony of sexual solicitation by an actor offering compensation to a child in exchange for sexual activity, the level of which changes if the actor is a minor

• and prohibits nonjudicial adjustments for patronizing a prostituted individual who is a child​ and sexual solicitation by an actor offering compensation to a child in exchange for sexual activity.

We worked on HB 38 Criminal Offenses Modifications extensively throughout the interim and the session, which is the bill targeted at organized retail theft. It defines an "organized criminal group" as three or more people who commit criminal offenses for the material benefit of the group and reduces the number of people that must be involved in the commission of a crime for it to be subject to the gang enhancement from 4 total people to 3 total people (which we were able to negotiate instead of 2). It amends the list of crimes eligible for enhancement to include criminal solicitation of a minor, property destruction, burglary, theft, identity fraud, weapons offenses, prostitution, communications fraud, money laundering, and transporting or harboring aliens. We were able to add language that would apply the enhancement only if the person had a prior conviction of one of the listed nonviolent offenses where another person was also convicted in the same case, or if the person traveled more than 50 miles to commit the crime. The bill also increases penalties for recruiting a minor to join a gang or intimidating a minor to remain in a gang from a class B to class A misdemeanor if the actor is a minor or a third degree felony if the actor is an adult and creates an elevated aggravated penalty if a dangerous weapon was used or bodily injury or serious emotional distress was caused. The newer version of the bill also increases the penalties for sexual extortion with bodily or psychological injury from a second degree felony to a first degree felony and increases fines for patronizing a prostitute or aiding prostitution.

HB 53 Litter Cleanup Amendments was on our list of suggested penalty bills to mitigate or drop. This bill originally included an increased penalty for unsecured loads, but that was removed based on our recommendation. The final bill increases the penalty for throwing lighted material from a moving vehicle from an infraction to a class C misdemeanor and adds a public awareness campaign regarding the importance of proper transportation and disposal of waste and maintaining clean roads and highways.

We worked on HB 66 Ritual Abuse Amendments during the interim. Originally, the bill sought to create a new crime of ritual abuse with extreme penalties, but the compromised language creates an aggravating factor when abuse is committed as part of a ritual. It also requires law enforcement to have training on sexual assault committed during a ritual.

HB 78 Criminal Offenses Amendments removes the possibility of suspending prison for serious violent offenses, including child sex abuse or kidnapping offenses, murder, rape, aggravated sexual assault, and aggravated kidnapping. It also removes the ability to suspend prison for attempts of those cases except when the court finds it is in the interest of justice and the offender is not a risk to the victim or public, instead mandating probation. The bill also increases aggravated child abuse to a first degree felony and requires a prosecutor, when reducing the level of certain crimes in an information or as part of a plea deal, to explain their reasons on the record. We worked extensively with the sponsor, Rep. Gwynn, last year to narrow this bill, so we did not oppose it this year.

HB 87 Drug Trafficking Amendments is the state’s response to increasing fentanyl cases in Utah. We put in dozens of hours researching fentanyl and drug crimes and negotiating the provisions of this bill during the interim. Originally, the bill made trafficking a fentanyl or fentanyl-related substance a first degree felony with a mandatory minimum prison term. We were able to get the mandatory prison reduced to a presumption if the actor is not a safety risk and is sentenced to 48 months of probation (prison does not apply to juveniles). Trafficking amount of fentanyl is defined as "100 grams or more of any composition or mixture, including pills, that contains any quantity of fentanyl." Though all the research agrees that the problem we have in Utah is a “demand” problem and that going after the easily-replaced population of drug traffickers is not an efficient way to decrease drug crime, the sponsor insists this bill will “disrupt the flow” even if it has no deterrent effect. Because we were able to get rid of the mandatory prison term, we did not oppose the bill.

HB 96 Fraud Amendments was on our list of penalty bills that should be dropped outright, but we were able to get some of the enhancements removed before it passed. The original bill established a tiered penalty enhancement scheme to the crime of defrauding creditors based on the value of the unpaid balance. The newest version removes some of the penalty tiers, including a second degree felony, and significantly raises the threshold for the higher penalty. As written, the bill makes the crime of defrauding creditors a class A misdemeanor, which can be enhanced to a third degree felony if the unpaid balance owed to the creditor on the property at the time of the act is or exceeds $10,000. We see this version of the bill as something that will be used sparingly and may actually provide another plea down/negotiating alternative in some fraud or theft cases.

Similarly, we worked to narrow HB 105 Criminal Code Modifications with Rep. Gwynn last year so likewise did not oppose. This bill does the following: 

• makes attempted murder a first degree felony with an indeterminate prison term of five years to life

• makes sexual relations with an adult high school student by a person in a position of special trust a third degree felony and removes consent as a defense

• creates the crime of indecent exposure of another individual in public, which can be a class C or B misdemeanor depending on level of exposure or a class A if committed in front of a child under 14

• repeals Title 76, Chapter 8, Part 8, Sabotage Prevention. 

The original version had no exceptions for juveniles in the “pantsing” portion of the bill and included a broader list of individuals that could be charged if they engaged in relations with an 18-year-old high school student. We also tried to prevent attempted murder from becoming a 1st degree felony, but legislators were unwilling to remove that change. HB 105 failed last year because it didn’t receive funding, but it was funded and passed this year.

HB 127 Sexual Crime Amendments increases the prison terms for the crimes of rape, object rape, and forcible sodomy from 5 years to life to 10 years to life when committed against an incapacitated adult. It was amended at the last minute to bring the number down from 15 years to life. We did not love this bill but already made it as narrow as we could, since the proponents of the bill were pushing for even more severe punishment.

HB 148 Child Sexual Abuse Amendments passed. The original bill increased the penalty for sexual offenses when the actor traveled over 50 miles to commit the offense. We were able to negotiate it down to an aggravating factor, which will be applicable in cases where the actor traveled more than 45 miles from the actor's residence to commit the offense or if the actor paid a child to travel more than 45 miles from the child's residence for the actor to commit the offense. Even though the bill is loosely based on the theory that offenders who go out of their way to commit crimes are generally higher-risk, 45 miles is an arbitrary number, but Rep. Wilcox made the changes we requested and we withdrew our opposition.

HB 173 Controlled Substances Act Amendments adds tianeptine and phenibut to Schedule I of the list of controlled substances.

HB 197 Criminal Conduct Amendments amends the crime of enticement of a minor to include communicating with anyone with the intent to solicit a minor, not just the minor, and provides elements to consider when the court is determining coercion in these offenses, including age, vulnerability, emotional harm, and fraud. It also requires a person petitioning for removal from the registry to have a court order authorizing their removal. This bill comes out of the belief that Utah is becoming a “sanctuary state” for sex offenders, who are moving to Utah to get removed from the registry.

A lot of our time this session was spent on HB 207 Sexual Offense Revisions and SB 144 Sexual Crimes Amendments. These bills represent a rollback of our heavily negotiated compromise with prosecution and Sen. Wilson two years ago in Sen. Wilson’s SB 167 Sexual Exploitation Amendments, instigated primarily by the AG’s office. We met with several stakeholder groups and legislators on these bills, including the AG’s office multiple times, to try and compromise again, but they were unwilling to make any changes. We tried to draft a substitute bill with Sen. Weiler, but the House pushed back on him and he did not run it. Our language would have stated that the felony offense of enticing a minor must have actually involved a minor and added a provision to sexual exploitation to include the creation of a link to a computer-based file or cloud-based file to allow repeated viewing of child sexual abuse material. We testified against both bills in committee numerous times, and although there was heated debate among committee members, both bills ended up passing. HB 207 was amended on the last day to exclude first degree felonies from the enhancements, largely due to pressure to reduce fiscal notes. The final versions of the bills do the following:

• makes aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor over 14 a 1F instead of a 2F

• increases the minimum prison term for sexual offenses by five years for each prior conviction and makes it mandatory

• amends the definition of child sexual abuse material to include a depiction of a minor over 14 years old observing or being used for sexually explicit conduct

• amends the crime of sexual exploitation of a minor to include accessing child sexual abuse material with the intent to view

HB 226 Criminal Amendments was another high priority oppose bill. The original version of this bill was much worse, seeking to raise the incarceration term for all class A misdemeanors from 364 days to 365 days. This seemingly minor change would trigger expedited deportation for non-citizen offenders, in many cases removing their right to see an immigration judge. As we pointed out to the committee and sponsor, this would ONLY impact non-citizens that are here in the U.S. lawfully, since those here unlawfully are already subject to immediate deportation. The original version also sought to allow the dissolution of a nonprofit convicted of allowing the landing of aliens or human smuggling. After countless hours working on this with other defense-minded stakeholders, the final bill was narrowed to remove the provision on nonprofits and limit the sentencing enhancement to DUIs and offenses against another person. The bill still creates a rebuttable presumption at pretrial that someone is at risk of fleeing if they are in the U.S. unlawfully or if they have been charged with an offense that could revoke their lawful presence status and requires a sheriff to notify a relevant federal immigration authority when releasing a felony or class A misdemeanor offender who is in the U.S. unlawfully. We believe this bill and others like it this session are based on the false narrative that non-citizens offend at a higher rate than citizens, when the opposite is true.

HB 234 Motorcycle Safety Amendments increases a fine for someone who drives a motorcycle without an endorsement to $350, but provides for a waiver if they obtain the endorsement within 30 days.

HB 252 State Custody Amendments prohibits DHHS from initiating any hormone treatments or sex characteristic surgeries for transgender inmates and does not allow opposite sex individuals to share a youth room in a detention facility or a secure care facility. It also changes the age of the youth for which an actor can commit the crime of custodial sexual relations against from 21 to 25.

HB 312 Criminal Justice Amendments is Rep. Lisonbee’s bill expanding the definition of “habitual offenders” as it pertains to misdemeanants, directing how treatment of this population should differ as it comes to pretrial release and sentencing. A habitual offender is defined as an individual who meets any of the following criteria:

• Has been convicted in at least five previous cases, with each case involving one or more felony offenses, and each conviction occurred within the five-year period immediately preceding the day on which the defendant is convicted of a new felony offense.

• Has been charged with one or more felony offenses in at least nine separate cases, and a felony charge in each case was issued within the five-year period immediately preceding the day on which the defendant is convicted of a new felony offense.

• Has been convicted in at least nine previous cases, with each case involving one or more misdemeanor offenses, and each conviction occurred within the three-year period immediately preceding the day on which the defendant is convicted of a new misdemeanor or felony offense.

• Has been charged with one or more misdemeanor offenses in at least 19 separate cases, and a misdemeanor charge in each case was issued within the three-year period immediately preceding the day on which the defendant is convicted of a new misdemeanor or felony offense.

The bill also does the following:

• Requires a jail to contract with another jail before releasing someone due to overcrowding if their arrest or conviction is for a violent offense, felony drug offense, fentanyl offense, or DUI with injury or death, or if they are a habitual offender, if they have been arrested or convicted of another crime in the last 30 days, or if they have an outstanding warrant for failing to appear

• Requires jails to prioritize housing county inmates over federal inmates

• Prohibits the Department of Corrections from housing inmates in a private correctional facility, unless the purpose is federal immigration detention or civil detention

• Adds strangulation or choking to DV in the presence of a child 

• Prohibits the use of state funds for a syringe exchange program

• Requires a county sheriff to report statistics on releases due to overcrowding and pretrial release

• Prohibits releasing someone on a financial condition is the offense is a misdemeanor offenses for DV or DUI

The original bill also had provisions like criminalizing mask wearing in public spaces and allowing city prosecutors to prosecute felonies when county prosecutors failed to do so, as well as several provisions related to bail, but all of these were removed due to significant opposition.

HB 368 Local Land Use Amendments allows a municipality to impose criminal penalties (in this case, a class B misdemeanor) for applicants that submit an identical plan within two years of knowingly submitting a nonqualifying identical plan.

HB 405 Human Trafficking and Smuggling Amendments was a top priority oppose bill for us this session from Rep. Pierucci. The original version of this bill increased several penalties, including: making human trafficking for labor, human trafficking for sexual exploitation, benefitting from human trafficking for labor or sexual exploitation, and human smuggling first degree felonies; making benefitting from human smuggling a second degree felony; establishing a mandatory prison term of 10 years for the crimes of human trafficking of a child, benefitting from child trafficking, aggravated human trafficking, aggravated human smuggling, and human trafficking of a vulnerable adult. Rep. Pierucci agreed to remove the penalty enhancements for human trafficking for labor, human smuggling, or benefitting from these two offenses, but we disagreed with her and other members of the Legislature over the mandatory minimum sentence for aggravated human trafficking. The final version still increases penalties for aggravated human trafficking, which includes, among other things, trafficking 10 or more individuals or trafficking them for longer than 30 days. We argued that this broad definition loops in a lot more behavior that may not otherwise amount to trafficking, but since the bill didn’t change the definition, only the penalty, members of the Legislature were not responsive to our request to disqualify these two elements from the mandatory minimum sentence.

SB 24 Child Abuse and Torture Amendments is another bill we worked on during the interim. This bill creates a first degree felony offense of child torture for serious injuries inflicted in an "exceptionally cruel or exceptionally depraved manner" or committed as a "course of conduct" (2 or more acts) with a mandatory minimum prison term of 10 years. It adds psychological injuries to the child abuse statute, defined as "identifiable mental or emotional harm, damage, impairment, or dysfunction." We opposed this bill and the creation of a new crime addressing behavior that is already a second degree felony, particularly because there was no data showing that these offenders were not already serving long sentences. We also spoke against the erosion of judicial discretion and highlighted the recent uptick in mandatory minimum legislation. We were able to get language in the bill that allows for a prison term step down of 7 years or 4 years, if the court finds it is in the interest of justice.

SB 68 Child Welfare Worker Protections separates the crime of assault against a child welfare worker and the crime of making a threat of violence against a child welfare worker into different sections and adds assaulting or threatening the family members of a child welfare worker to the respective sections. The sponsor agreed to reduce the penalty from a class A to a class B, but the penalty did not change from a class A misdemeanor.

SB 76 Marriage Amendments changes the allowed age difference between a minor and the person they are marrying from seven years to four years. We tracked this bill because solemnizing an illegal marriage of a minor is a third degree felony.

SB 77 Public Safety Animal Amendments changes the language in the statute regulating police canines to apply to all public safety animals.

SB 90 Mandatory Jail Sentence Amendments is another crimmigration bill that started out much worse and more far-reaching. The original bill created an enhancement of one degree for a crime committed by an individual in the U.S. unlawfully, with additional fines and indeterminate prison terms. We worked with the sponsors to narrow the enhancement to cases in which someone is deported and re-enters the country illegally and then commits a new crime. This bill does include a mandatory jail sentence for drug- and theft-related crimes committed on re-entry, prohibiting the offender from being turned over to the federal government for deportation until the person has served the entire mandatory jail sentence. When asked why the state would codify policy to house non-citizens on taxpayer dollars, the sponsors explained that they wanted to target people likely involved with the cartel who would have the resources to re-enter the US with ease to commit more drug offenses. Because we were able to get the bill much more narrow, we did not publicly oppose it.

SB 164 Modifications to Election Law expands a third degree felony for poll watchers to include divulging information related to the number or names of verified signatures.

SB 170 School Discipline Amendments prohibits corporal punishment and seclusion in schools, applies the Child Abuse and Neglect reporting and investigating requirements to complaints of corporal punishment, and gives criminal immunity to a school or person who makes a good faith report. It also qualifies any violations of this chapter as unlawful detention (which is a class B misdemeanor).

SB 195 Transportation Amendments creates an infraction for operating electric unicycles above 28 mph or in prohibited areas.