Court Opinion

ID: 9577347
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:34:01.949745+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:20:24.776933
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, Justice
(concurring with the dissent) :
I concur with Mr. Justice Tuckett’s dissent since I think the legislature in passing the drug act had in mind Belt v. Turner, 25 Utah 2d 230, 479 P.2d 791, decided January 20, 1971, which in my opinion overruled State v. Miller, 24 Utah 2d 1, 464 P.2d 844 (Feb. 5, 1970). In the Belt case we said that where an offense was committed and prosecuted and the accused was convicted under the legislation existing at the time of the offense, he was subject only to a penalty prescribed by the legislation made effective after such conviction, but before sentence. In the instant case the legislature seems to have adopted the new version of this court in the Belt case, — - which effectively killed the Miller case. 1 think the legislation here was and is somewhat ambiguous but just as sensibly and logically can mean that if the sentence were not pronounced before the effective date of the enactment, the accused is not subject to the previous act, neither would the defendant be bound if the “prosecution” were not started before such effective date. The one conclusion makes as much sense as the other, and in view of the possibility, I agree with the dissent, which logically would *339seem to require the main opinion to adjust itself to the Belt case. This court, in my opinion, now find's itself impaled on a tripronged horn of a multi-pronged dilemma.