Court Opinion

ID: 9585933
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:05:20.082317+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:24:17.314601
License: Public Domain

ZIMMERMAN, Chief Justice,
concurring:
I consider this a close ease. There are certainly analogies between the discretion exercised under the statute in question and the other discretionary decisions routinely permitted prosecutors, as Justice Russon’s dissent notes. However, on balance, I am persuaded that the position Justice Durham and I took in State v. Bell, 785 P.2d 390, 407 (Utah 1989), remains sound. The discretion granted here is sufficiently broad and unfettered and its consequences sufficiently important for the juveniles accused that it differs in kind, for Utah constitutional purposes, from the examples relied upon by Justice Russon. For that reason, I join the majority today.
It is important to note that the majority finds only this particular method used by the legislature to address the problem of the serious youth offender to be unconstitutional. Today’s decision should not be read in any way as minimizing the problems of violent youth crime. These problems are real. But the mere fact that a real problem exists does not mean that the constitution’s limitations on how government power may be used can be ignored in the rush to find a solution.
During the last session, the legislature enacted a new and more comprehensive approach to the problem of violent youth crime, one in which the legislature took it upon itself to categorize the crimes that deserve an adult response and those that do not, rather than leaving the matter to the prosecution. Today’s decision does not purport to address the constitutionality of this new scheme. It treats only the old.