Court Opinion

ID: 9600419
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:26:55.16793+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:07.168044
License: Public Domain

OAKS, Justice
(concurring):
I concur in the opinion of the Court, and add an additional observation on the jurisdiction of this Court to review traffic cases and other cases commenced in the circuit courts.
Having been unsuccessful in a dissent on this point, I now acquiesce in the majority’s holding that this Court has the constitutional power to hear an appeal of a case that began in the circuit court and has already been heard on appeal in the district court and does not involve the validity or constitutionality of a statute. State v. Taylor, Utah, 664 P.2d 439 (1983). But I protest the wisdom of a statute that imposes such jurisdiction on this Court. Discretionary jurisdiction would be another matter, but U.C.A., 1953, § 78-3-5 requires us to hear every such appeal “involving a constitutional issue.” In this case, and in others we have received, the only “constitutional issue” is the sufficiency of evidence for a probable cause determination attendant upon a constitutional right. Some such cases pose significant issues for review and ruling by a supreme court, but most — like the present case — are simply applications of well-established principles to various factual situations.
As the Supreme Court of this state staggers under an obligatory jurisdiction that now brings us more than 700 filings per year, I respectfully suggest that the Legislature enact a means of relieving this Court from the statutory duty of reviewing every circuit court case the parties choose to appeal for a second time after they have already received (and lost) one appellate review in the district court. Although cases commenced in the circuit court currently comprise only about one to two percent of our filings, that number is likely to increase in view of our ruling in State v. Taylor, supra. In any event, our current overload is most likely to be relieved by the total *1306effect of various small reductions, and the elimination of obligatory jurisdiction in circuit court cases is a good place to start.
HALL, C.J., concurs in the concurring opinion of OAKS, J.