Posted: June 30, 2016
Rules of Criminal Procedure – Comment Period Closed August 14, 2016
Rule 22 The proposed changes to the rule will set out in more detail the circumstances under which a court may correct a sentence.
Utah Court Rules – Published for Comment
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Posted: June 30, 2016
Rule 22 The proposed changes to the rule will set out in more detail the circumstances under which a court may correct a sentence.
The proposed change to the rule unnecessarily limits the power of trial level courts to correct illegal sentences. Instead of allowing these courts to solve problems in an efficient and convenient way, as Rule 22(e) has previously done, this change forces any out-of-the-ordinary illegal sentence to be challenged through some other exotic and likely expensive method. In reality, for most people effected by an illegal sentence, justice will go unrealized, and the illegality will persist. Limiting the jurisdiction of the trial level courts from even reviewing their own illegal sentences is a mistake. These are supposed to be courts of broad jurisdiction. These are the courts where the mistakes were made. These are the courts where people have been represented, where their former attorneys can easily raise the problem to the attention of the judges who can easily fix them. Limiting jurisdiction of these courts even further is unnecessary and will be a hinderance to most people’s access to justice.
While this rule is open, we should change the word “shall” in Line 4 to “may”. The time constraints in the rule have been determined to be non-mandatory and as a practical matter, any pre-sentence investigation and report takes longer than 45 days to complete. In the alternative, the phrase “, when practical,” can be inserted after the word “shall” in Line 4.
The proposed changes to rule 22 should include the ability to amend the sentence when the written document does not conform to what was pronounced in court. This has been a significant problem since rule 26 was changed to require the court to prepare the sentence instead of the parties. Under this process the parties do not get to review the written document until after it is signed by the judge. Under rule 22 there seems to be no remedy if a court clerk makes a mistake in the initial drafting and the judge signs the document without catching the mistake. A couple of examples in criminal cases would be failing to include a term of probation like obtaining substance abuse or sex offender treatment or including a higher number of jail days than was actually ordered in court. There needs to be a mechanism to fix this. I would prefer that rule 26 be amended back so that the parties prepare these documents and finalize them before the court issues them.