The following article was published in the November 2019 issue of the Utah Justice Coalition’s monthly newsletter.
In the state of Utah, we have a few different levels within the court system supreme court, appeals court, district courts, juvenile court, small claims courts, and justice courts. I find myself most concerned with the court system regarding evidence necessary to convict.
In most courts in Utah, the evidence standard is beyond a reasonable doubt. In Utah justice courts, they have a lower standard of evidence of Prima facie. This is a Latin term that means “on its face”. Judges in Utah Justice Courts can issue a verdict using the face value of the evidence to arrive at the decision.
This lower standard only requires a minimal evidence level. An example of this is if two parties are in front of a judge in a higher court and they both give testimony they are required to provide evidence to prove those testimonies. In the justice court with the same scenario, the judge does not need any proof for testimonies. This makes it easy for justice court judges to simply say I just like the other guy better than you and they have met the “on its face” evidence standard. This level of evidence does not allow justice it creates an easy way for judges to side in favor of their employer the court and the city in order to extort money from you.
Lower courts have lower standards of evidence. Having a lower standard of evidence means the court can give a guilty verdict without having a great deal of certainty about what happened in a case.
For example, if you are issued a citation for running a red light and the officer’s body cam fails to see the color of the light a judge can give a guilty verdict because they feel more inclined to believe the officer more than your own testimony.
This does not grant justice this allows for judges to rule in favor of the corporation who employs them with little regard to individuals who time and money are being extorted.
Judges claim that if you do not like their decision you can appeal the case to a higher court however this still requires additional time and money from you.
Other areas of concern exist with traffic court offense which carries a potential for criminal charges. It is rumored that you can request a jury trial in order to push the court to drop the case. This information is not correct, justice court representatives possess no such mechanism. If you want a jury trial then you have to lose the case and file an appeal in a higher court.
Conflict of interest
This issue is a big problem however it is not the only problem with the court system. Twice per month the judge and the police officer get a paycheck, from the same corporation. Maybe police officers and judges have a mutual interest to make sure that people do not get out of tickets and jail time.
Monopoly
Most people understand that monopolies are bad, the lack of competition allows a business to increase its price and lower its quality without regard for the customer. Maybe we need to take a good hard look at our government branches? What is the quality of the service like? What are the prices like? Do they feel concerned about their customers?
Other concerns
I am not alone in criticizing Utah justice courts, a study conducted by Utah Legal Defenders Association and Weber State University (Newton, Welch, Hamilton; 2012) recommends some harsh strategies to resolve the known issues with Utah Justice courts including abolishing them. A quote from the study states:
“(The) cities treated justice courts as revenue-driven entities since the fee collection seemed to be the largest motivation for creating a justice court.”
They are not the only organization not in favor of Utah’s justice courts, in 1972 the Utah legislature also had a study conducted over a one year period by The Utah Legislative Council that “identified numerous problems so serious and weighty that the council recommended dissolving the justice courts”. Former Chief Justice Christine M. Durham is quoted as saying, a “growing public perception” exists “that justice courts are vehicles for generating revenue” which should “never [be] a proper function for courts”.
Utah Justice courts have some serious flaws, I also recommend shutting them down or folding them into the district courts.