Court Opinion

ID: 9537514
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:19:25.757686+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:56:44.460853
License: Public Domain

WILKINS, Justice
(concurring in reversal):
I concur that the District Court’s order in arrest of judgment must be reversed. But, I think it should be noted that a court has the right, and indeed should exercise the duty, to arrest a judgment after a jury verdict in an appropriate case pursuant to Utah Code Ann., Sec. 77-34-1, as amended. In this particular case, however, the evidence does not permit such judicial action.
When the District Court here stated: “. . . the jury verdict in this case left much to be desired from a point of view of justice under the facts and circumstances of this case,” it was essentially grounding its reasons for arresting the judgment in a belief that the evidence was insufficient to establish that the defendant had committed a public offense.
An appellate court, or a trial court, is not permitted in a civil or criminal action to substitute its judgment for the jury’s unless the verdict is based on evidence that is so inherently improbable that no reasonable mind could believe it1 (and in a criminal case a “not guilty” verdict cannot be overturned whether a reasonable mind could believe it or not).
In short, the legal mechanism of arresting a judgment is a firmly entrenched exception to the rule of law in a proper case that jurors are the exclusive judges of the credibility of the witnesses and the weight of the evidence. And it should be noted that the District Court here acted in what it perceived to be an authorized manner pursuant to that mechanism. We have, however, concluded after reviewing the evidence that the Court’s action was not warranted under the facts of this case.
MAUGHAN, Justice, concurs in the views expressed in the concurring opinion of WILKINS, J.

. State v. Harless, 23 Utah 2d 128, 459 P.2d 210, (1969). See also State v. Ward, 10 Utah 2d 34, 347 P.2d 865 (1959); State v. Middelstadt, Utah, 579 P.2d 908 (1978); State v. Wilson, Utah, 565 P.2d 66 (1977).