The Court of Appeals clarified preservation requirements for notice challenges and held that redundant jury instructions on affirmative defenses are not required when other instructions adequately inform the jury of the State’s burden of proof.
Utah appellate courts will not require jury unanimity on whether a defendant committed murder as a principal versus accomplice, treating these as different theories of the same offense rather than separate crimes.
The court clarified that in failure to stop cases, a jury may reasonably infer intent to flee or elude from circumstantial evidence, even when the defendant claims he was seeking a safe place to pull over.
The case clarifies when defendants are entitled to specific jury unanimity instructions when prosecutors present evidence of multiple similar incidents but charge only a single count.
Utah courts will uphold convictions based on circumstantial identification evidence when it allows a reasonable jury to infer the defendant’s identity as the perpetrator.
The Court of Appeals affirmed criminal convictions where defense counsel’s strategic decisions fell within reasonable professional standards and defendant’s PSI challenge lacked required specificity.
Lotus Appellate Law handles appeals throughout Utah, serving clients in all counties and courts across the state including:
