2025 Police & Prosecutor Bills.
PASSED BILLS
HB 82 Law Enforcement Modifications is the result of an interim task force studying “Brady systems,” or police misconduct databases. The legislator overseeing the task force, Rep. Gwynn (also a police chief in Roy City), was entirely focused on protecting due process for police officers before they can be placed on a Brady list, as well as ensuring the list was never public information. Rep. Gwynn sponsored the bill, which creates a "Brady identification system" that prosecutors "may" use to fulfill discovery obligations regarding peace officer misconduct, but does not make this system mandatory. It requires peace officers to disclose placement in the Brady system to other prosecutors, but does not make the Brady system subject to GRAMA. It also provides notice requirements for law enforcement but not criminal defendants.
HB 92 Private Individual Force and Detention Amendments amends provisions for a lawful citizen's arrest to: require that law enforcement is contacted; remove criminal and civil liability for the citizen for all but gross negligence; allow the use of "reasonable" force by a citizen for a fleeing individual; and remove the ability of the citizen to take the detained person to a magistrate. The sponsor wants to be sure that citizens acting in good faith are protected, but law enforcement did testify to some language changes they made, with a strong preference that people contact law enforcement so they avoid inadvertently kidnapping someone.
HB 273 Law Enforcement Investigation Amendments went through three iterations. The original bill allowed for reverse-keyword warrants, which we were against, and the last version banned them outright, which we supported. The newest, and final, version allows for reverse-keyword information to be used by law enforcement if they obtain a search warrant for a violent felony offense or if they demonstrate an imminent, ongoing threat to public safety. Our long-time ally Libertas led the effort on this bill.
HB 339 Law Enforcement Investigation Modifications exempts law enforcement officers from body camera requirements if they are assigned to a narcotics unit or task force engaged in undercover operations. As the law is currently written, body camera requirements (which we helped write) must be adopted completely by agencies using body cameras. Some agencies wanted to start using body cameras but have chosen not to because of the requirement to put them on undercover officers, and this bill makes that carveout for them. The sponsor, Rep. Gwynn, believes that this bill will increase the number of agencies using body cameras, which we hope will be true. If the exception is abused, we intend to readdress the statute in a future session.
HB 366 Access to Call Location Information Amendments requires mobile telecommunications services to provide law enforcement with communication device location information as quickly as possible when a law enforcement warrant is in regards to an individual who is missing and in danger. There is a large definition of communication device location information in the bill, including call logs, GPS tracking data, application data, browser history, email records, photos and videos, SMS and MMS messages, and contact details. However, this bill does not alter the warrant requirement to obtain this information, it essentially just moves a request for a missing person’s information to the top of the phone carrier’s stack to speed up the process. The newest version of the bill changed the language from a “request” for this information into a “warrant,” which we were more comfortable with.
HB 465 Law Enforcement Agency Amendments is a response to rising crime rates in Salt Lake City. The bill targets them specifically, requiring the city to enter into an interagency agreement related to public safety concerns with the Department of Public Safety and to submit a report to the Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Interim Committee regarding the interagency agreement.
SB 77 Public Safety Animal Amendments changes the language in the statute regulating police canines to apply to all public safety animals.
SB 83 Law Enforcement Policy Requirements requires a law enforcement agency to adopt a policy regarding their process for investigations into criminal violations of stalking injunctions, jail release agreements, jail release court orders, or protective orders. The policy must include best practices for investigating repeat violations and information and referral resources for victims.
SB 140 Law Enforcement DNA Amendments was a high priority early on in the session but was mitigated significantly. The original bill sought to require sheriffs to collect DNA from anyone who committed a misdemeanor against an individual and allow that DNA to be processed 60 days after an arrest warrant if an outstanding warrant was issued after the individual was booked. This represented a huge expansion of government intrusion and DNA collection, and we partnered with our libertarian and liberal allies to oppose this bill. In response, the sponsor removed the collection requirement for misdemeanors, but the bill still allows the government to process the DNA that is collected, if, after the person is arrested on a felony, charges are filed and the court issues a warrant that is not served for 60 days. The final version also requires a prosecutor to notify someone of their right to have their DNA sample destroyed.
We supported SB 180 Law Enforcement Usage of Artificial Intelligence, which requires a law enforcement agency to have a policy concerning the use of generative AI and requires a record created wholly or partially by AI to have a disclaimer and has been reviewed by the author for accuracy.
SB 290 Candidate Licensing Amendments requires potential candidates for district attorney, county attorney, or attorney general to submit information affirming that they meet the constitutional requirements for that office.
Senator Weiler’s SB 318 Prosecutorial Misconduct Amendments created an independent commission called the Prosecutorial Misconduct Commission that can investigate and hold hearings on complaints, the results of which shall be available in a public report. It defines "prosecutorial misconduct" as purposefully or intentionally violating, or recklessly disregarding, a clear and unambiguous legal obligation or professional standard for a prosecuting attorney, if the violation did or could have impacted the substantive or procedural due rights of an individual accused of a crime. Members of the committee will include three prosecutors, two judges, and a retired attorney whose primary caseload was criminal defense.This committee was modeled after the judicial misconduct committee and prosecutors were strongly opposed to its creation.
FAILED BILLS
We spoke in opposition to HB 17 Limitations on the Use of Polygraphs several times. This bill would have prohibited law enforcement, prosecutors, courts, and other government officials from requesting or compelling polygraph examinations of victims during sexual offense investigations. We testified that polygraphs have a 75-90% accuracy rate and that it can be helpful to have both the accuser and the accused take one so that counsel on both sides can evaluate the strength of their cases. We said we would not oppose the bill if the language prohibiting the request for victims to take a polygraph was removed, and there was a senator who felt similarly who attempted a hostile amendment to remove that language, but the sponsor was against making that change. She cited the Violence Against Women's Act (VAWA), and took the language directly from this act to write the newest sub. There was some confusion that removing the request language would result in a loss of federal VAWA funding for the state, but our research showed that this was not the case, at least not right now. The Senate subsequently killed the bill.
HB 171 Victim and Witness Privacy Amendments was another top priority oppose for us. Rep. Clancy brought this bill to address sensitive data collected from a victim’s cell phone that is not relevant to an active criminal investigation that is given to a defendant. His solution was to establish a victim’s right to privacy for nonpublic electronic data in a criminal proceeding. While we understood his concern and the need to be sensitive to victim privacy, this bill represents a huge imposition on defense counsel. The bill sought to deny defense counsel access to “non-relevant” information from a victim’s cell phone unless defense accessed from a law enforcement agency or a prosecutor’s office. Even though the sponsor assured us that defense would continue to have unrestricted access to any evidence that the prosecutor and law enforcement are using, we were very concerned that all determinations of relevancy would be made by prosecutors and law enforcement and that combing through other data at an agency would take a large amount of defense time and resources. This would greatly impact court timelines and litigation. Additionally, the sponsor did not have a clear answer on what would happen procedurally if the defense did find something relevant in the restricted information, and we were staunchly opposed to adding an additional hurdle to defense discovery that is not applied to prosecution. Ultimately, Rep. Clancy agreed to drop the bill this year, but we expect to discuss this issue during the 2025 interim.
HB 468 Automatic License Plate Reader Amendments was a good bill that didn’t pass. It would have codified situations in which law enforcement and other government agencies are able to use automatic license plate reader systems, thereby preventing their use in all other circumstances.
HB 567 Attorney General Office Amendments would have codified ethical obligations of the Office of the Attorney General.
SB 243 Law Enforcement Quota Amendments sought to prohibit law enforcement agencies from imposing citation quotas or using quotas as a way to evaluate officer performance and required CCJJ to report agencies that used quotas in violation. Although there was consensus about the final version of this bill, the sponsor, Sen. Weiler, had so many other bills higher on his list and this one ran out of time.
SB 252 Digital Information Seizure Amendments is another defense-friendly bill from Sen. Weiler, and although it underwent extensive changes based on law enforcement feedback, there was never full support from law enforcement agencies and prosecutors. This bill sought to establish a deadline for computers and phones to be returned to their owners in criminal cases. Specifically, the latest version would have required a law enforcement agency or prosecuting agency to make a copy of stored digital data on a seized computer or cell phone within a certain timeframe and return it to the owner within a day of doing so (30 days for phone, 120 days for laptop) and prohibited law enforcement or prosecution from conditioning the return of a seized device on the owner consenting to a search of the device or unlocking the device.
SB 304 Government Attorney Amendments would have changed the effective date of the 2024 General Session bill number S.B. 273, which requires the district attorney's office in counties of the first class to track time spent on criminal cases. It passed the Senate vote but was amended in House committee to move up the effective date to October of this year, then was never heard in the House.
SB 313 Constable Amendments sought to allow a constable to establish a payment schedule with an individual instead of seizing their property.