Court Opinion

ID: 9852990
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:40:47.926908+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:39.341423
License: Public Domain

DAVIS, Associate Presiding Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. Article I, section 13 of the Utah Constitution provides thát a preliminary hearing shall be held in all cases prosecuted by an information, unless this hearing is waived by the defendant. The preliminary hearing is a “critical stage in the criminal process,” State v. Anderson, 612 P.2d 778, 782 n. 9 (Utah 1980), designed to “relieve[] the accused from the substantial degradation and expense incident to a modern criminal trial when the charges against him [or her] are unwarranted or the evidence insufficient.” Id. at 784. The Utah Supreme Court recognized in Anderson that while a preliminary hearing “is not a trial per se, it is not an ex parte proceeding nor one-sided determination of probable cause.” Id. at 783. The court further noted,
“In some cases, the evidence introduced in behalf of the defendant will do no more than raise a conflict which can best be resolved by a jury.... But, in other cases, the evidence elicited by defense counsel on cross-examination or from the testimony of defense witnesses or from other evidence may lead the examining magistrate to disbelieve the prosecution’s witnesses and discharge the defendant for lack of probable cause.”
Id. at 783 n. 19 (quoting Myers v. Commonwealth, 363 Mass. 843, 298 N.E.2d 819, 826 (1973)); see also Myers, 298 N.E.2d at 826 (“ ‘In determining whether ... [probable] cause exists, the judge may consider the credibility of the witnesses and the quality of the evidence introduced.’ ”) (emphasis added) (citation omitted).
The majority apparently believes that this case fits into the former category — a case in which the evidence elicited by the defendant raises a conflict to be resolved by the jury. This case is more appropriately placed within the latter category — a case in which the examining magistrate was led to “disbelieve the prosecution’s witnesses and discharge the defendant for lack of probable cause.” See also State v. Wodskow, 896 P.2d 29, 32 (Utah App.1995) (“[T]he ... [reviewing] court should give some deference to a magistrate’s factual findings when the issue[ ] of credibility ... [is] important to finding probable cause.”) (citing Anderson, 612 P.2d at 786).
The facts observed by the medical examiner are not in dispute. The magistrate has found that those facts do not support the medical examiner’s conclusion and, therefore, his opinion is not credible. It was acknowledged in Anderson that “[i]n a proceeding such as the preliminary examination, ... the credibility of the witnesses is an important element in the determination of probable cause.” Id. at 786. The magistrate also found that the gunpowder residue tests were a very poor quality of evidence due to the inexperience of the officers conducting the tests, the errors committed during the tests, and the inconclusive nature of the tests.
Therefore, considering the poor quality of the gunpowder residue tests and the incredible testimony of the medical examiner, the magistrate ruled that the State had not met its burden to establish a “quantum of evi*47dence” sufficient to warrant binding over the defendant for trial. “The fundamental purpose served by the preliminary examination is the ferreting out of groundless and improvident prosecutions.” Id. at 783-84. The magistrate properly found that this was such a case. I would affirm.