Court Opinion

ID: 9633610
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:54:06.126946+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:38.297176
License: Public Domain

DURHAM, Justice
(concurring separately):
I concur in the majority opinion, but write separately to emphasize the obligation of defense counsel to notify judges who have ruled on pretrial suppression issues that defendants’ objections to challenged evidence are reserved and not withdrawn, thus alerting those judges to the possibility that trial evidence may affect the validity of earlier rulings. I agree that in this case there was an extensive hearing on defendant’s motion to suppress, and it is quite clear from the record that defense counsel did not intend to waive any related evidentiary objections at trial. In fact, several ambiguous references during trial to a “prior motion” may have referred to defendant’s pretrial motion to suppress. It is important, however, that trial judges be given the opportunity to review pretrial suppression rulings when and if there is any likelihood that they were erroneous. When the pretrial judge is also the trial judge, unlike the circumstance in State v. Lesley, 672 P.2d 79, 82 (Utah 1983), this is easily accomplished by indicating on the record, either at the end of the pretrial hearing or at the trial outside the presence of the jury, that there is a continuing objection to the evidence challenged in the motion to suppress.
HOWE, and ZIMMERMAN, JJ., concur in the concurring opinion of DURHAM, J.