If, at any time during the term of the plea in abeyance agreement , information comes to the attention of the prosecuting attorney or the court that the defendant has violated any condition of the agreement, the court, at the request of the prosecuting attorney, made by appropriate motion and affidavit, or upon its own motion, may issue an order requiring the defendant to appear before the court at a designated time and place to show cause why the court should not find the terms of the agreement to have been violated and why the agreement should not be terminated. If, following an evidentiary hearing, the court finds that the defendant has failed to substantially comply with any term or condition of the plea in abeyance agreement, it may terminate the agreement and enter judgment of conviction and impose sentence against the defendant for the offense to which the original plea was entered. . . . If at the conclusion of the term of this abeyance term, the Defendant has abided by all of the terms set forth in paragraph five, the Court, on notice to the prosecuting attorney, shall enter a conviction in this matter to one count of Welfare Fraud, a Class A Misdemeanor. Defendant argues that the trial court lacked jurisdiction once the term of her agreement expired and therefore her conviction and sentence should be set aside. Specifically, defendant claims that because the eighteen-month period during which the trial court agreed to hold her felony guilty plea in abeyance concluded before her failure to comply with the agreement was formally brought to the trial court's attention, the trial court lacked jurisdiction to impose a sentence upon her for the felony offense to which she had pleaded guilty.
Defendant relies on cases decided under Utah's probation statutes.
Other probation cases have similarly examined language in the probation statutes as revised from time to time, to determine the legality of probation extension or revocation proceedings. Defendant argues that the reasoning of the probation statute cases should be applied to plea in abeyance proceedings to require that proceedings to determine whether a defendant has violated the terms of an abeyance agreement must be initiated prior to expiration of the term of the agreement. The State argues that a plea in abeyance differs from probation in both its statutory provisions and function. Thus, cases decided under the probation statutes are not directly applicable to pleas in abeyance. We begin by examining the relevant Utah statute to resolve this dispute.