H.B. 366 Judicial Modifications: transcript

Thank you so much. I have, uh, Ryan Robinson here, who's the West Valley City prosecutor, and I'm gonna turn some time over to him in in just a second. But, uh, really, uh, pleased to be in front of the committee today to present house Bill 360 6. Now, as many of you know, um, when cities prosecute as the Class B, class C, uh, misdemeanors and infractions, uh, when there's an appeal of those cases, they, they are appealed to the district court and heard de novo. Um, cities also, um, by mandate from the legislature have the ability to prosecute class A misdemeanors. And in the cases when they do that, that also goes and is heard in front of the district court. Now, um, and let me just say, I've, I've got a flyer for my intern. Do you mind if she passes that around, Mr. Chair? Absolutely. Thank You. Um, so in for much of Utah's history, uh, when these appeals were heard from cities, the court accommodated the cities by scheduling them on a single day in front of a single judge, um, to be able to have those, um, judicial, uh, economies of scale and, and to, to accommodate the, the needs of the cities. However, recently, that practice has changed and it's caused, um, significant impacts in both the third and the fourth district. And, uh, we're also hearing concerns that, that, you know, there may be, um, other districts that are moving to move away from this, like in the second district and the fifth district. Um, this, uh, this is causing a lot of issues to the cities, um, as they're being, uh, scheduled to appear in front of multiple judges in different courtrooms, and they don't really have the staffing to be able to keep up with that. And so, let me turn some time over to, um, Mr. Robinson, who can really give some color to this issue and explain the solution that, um, we have provided here in HB 360 6.

Thank you and, uh, appreciate your time committee. Uh, I've been the West Valley prosecutor for 26 years and go, and even well before that, uh, misdemeanor cases have been in some form, uh, heard in the district court. And remember for a moment, kind of the size and scale of city prosecutor's offices. Most have one prosecutor to cover all of their caseload in justice and district court. The largest one I know of other than Salt Lake, is my own office that has seven full-time prosecutors. But in contrast to the Attorney General's office who have more than a hundred, the Salt Lake County District Attorney's office, who have well over a hundred large offices, can obviously, uh, handle being assigned to, you know, dozens of judges on any given day. Um, whereas cities, we, we have to, we need, frankly, a sense of scale and efficiency to be able to make our court assignments in both justice and district court. And for 30 years, the district court has thoughtfully accommodated our needs by creating these kind of city calendars where, at the very least, city Juab, our cases were all assigned to the same judge or judges so that we could efficiently appear in front of their courts and not miss our court appearances. Um, we needed those efficiencies and we, and we certainly appreciated them. In 2005, the West Jordan District Court was built, and, uh, a friend researched and reminded me of the language that the courts put out in their press release at the time was that they built that court for its geographic convenience to the people they served. And they stated that that court would allow the po the public from the south end of the valley, convenient access to court services. They seemed to understand then that the best access to justice occurs when it's closest to the participants. And that's not just for prosecutors. I think we've made our point that this is an inconvenience to prosecutors, but also the public defenders that need to make these appointments. Uh, private attorneys, the police officers, the witnesses, the victims, and most, and even the defendants. Um, court was assigned to the area closest to, to the people. Um, and then unfortunately, in 2025, just this July at fourth, the third district at least, they've more or less doubled back on that i, that concept of keeping court closest to the people and instead have seemingly, uh, decide to prioritize making sure that all of their calendars are kind of fairly and equally distributed amongst all the judges in, in the district would for us. I think that's 31 judges. And so they've let us know that the era of scheduling with us in mind, or the litigants in mind, it, it was over and that we no longer would have, uh, city calendars. Uh, we no longer got, uh, a specific judge or judges to hear our case. And instead that we were expected to service all 31 judges' calendars Monday through Friday whenever they came. Um, really a comedy of madness, you know, to serve like a perfectly equal judicial schedule. Uh, west Valley specifically, we file about 1000 class a misdemeanors a year. I have three dedicated prosecutors who do nothing but those 1000 cases, and it's worked perfectly for decades, but we're now being asked to be in two different buildings in front of 30 different judges, um, five days a week. It's an impossible task. Um, as was mentioned, the fourth district is dealing with the exact same problem in the Utah County area, and I'm sure you'll hear people from that district speak to this bill today. Um, west Valley and my colleagues from other cities have tried to reach out to address this with the courts, especially related to the class A misdemeanor part of our, uh, of our issue. And they've not been willing, frankly, to have to, to relent on their new edict. Um, this bill would return the, the courts from calendars that fit their needs the very best to ones that would return it back to the people who are in their courtrooms, the victims, the defendants. Imagine a homeless defendant living in Salt Lake City, trying to get to West Jordan. Imagine a Bluffdale domestic violence victim trying to travel to Salt Lake City. Uh, it, it really doesn't make sense for anybody except for potentially the, the court and, and their real needs. I understand that they have very busy system. Um, we're asking that you move this bill forward, and I appreciate your attention. If I could just add one thing, um, I, I do want to say that I appreciate the court's willingness to engage in some, some dialogue, um, over the last few weeks to see if there's some way that we could resolve this. I would love nothing more than the court to be able to figure it out within their own rules and not have the legislature have to step into the space. Unfortunately, as I've heard from the cities that are working here, they just have not come forward with a reasonable solution to be able to solve this problem that solves, uh, the needs that, that, uh, Ryan has talked about today. Um, one of the things you'll hear from them is that they feel like this squarely relies, uh, or lies within the administrative jurisdiction of the court to be able to decide exactly where these cases are heard and how they're heard, and that it isn't really the purview of the legislature to, to legislate in this space. One, one issue that I just want to flag for this committee is that this legislature has made several policy considerations in how they want cities to prosecute these types of crime and giving cities the ability to prosecute class A misdemeanors. And for good reason. Because in a lot of cases, because the Class A misdemeanors are kind of the lowest of the, the crimes that a district attorney or county attorney's office will handle, they often get overlooked and aren't given the same level of, um, consideration that that other, you know, felony type cases do. Um, which, you know, leans on the cities that if they want to make sure that those crimes are prosecuted in the right way, that they have the ability to do that. The legislature is entered into that space and said, yes, we want to grant cities the ability to do that. However, by the court forcing these administrative rules in place, essentially for many cities, they've said, we can no longer exercise that. There is no way physically for our office with the resources that we have with the limited number of attorneys be in multiple courtrooms at the exact same time. It just can't happen. And so, though I, I sympathize with the court's argument that this is really just an administrative matter, in essence, they are making a policy decision and forcing our cities to, to change, uh, in a space where, uh, again, I think the legislature has already acted. And, and so what HB three 30 or 360 6 does here is just bring us back to where we were before. Um, that worked for 30 years for the court, and that allows these cities to execute those rights that, that have already been granted to them. So, um, I urge your support and happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, uh, hoping I could ask a series of questions here. Absolutely. I mean, um, I don't know who has to consent to that, but I'm sure both of us would. You're the chair. I thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, a few questions. Um, how many city statewide, um, prosecute class A misdemeanors? I'll defer to Ryan. Do you know?

I, I would say somewhere between six and 12, maybe eight to 12. A lot of, most of the cities in Utah County have done their Class A misdemeanors for a very long time, and they're slowly abandoning them as they are being told that they can't get to all their court appointments. So it's hard to count because, you know, it's changed even in the last month, um, as they're dealing with this difficulty.

And, uh, you're, you're West Valley, uh, Salt Lake County, correct? Um, are there any other cities aside from West Valley in Salt Lake County that prosecute Class A?

No, just, uh, just salt in in our county. Just us. Uh, again, a lot of cities in Utah County, several cities in Davis County, and I, I really can't speak further south than that for with any certainty. And, and to that point, if I could add Representative Miller, I have heard from some cities in Salt Lake County that don't currently prosecute Class A misdemeanors, that as the, the, um, county, um, justice court is going to be closed, that they are taking a serious look at what it would take to prosecute those Class A misdemeanors. Again, I think partly feeling like they're gonna be in the district court anyway for these cases, so can they add it? But then also because they feel like their citizens are asking for it because they don't feel like they're getting the relief from the, the district court or from the, um, the, the district attorney's office.

Oh, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I, uh, a question for Mr. Robinson. Um, who's the, uh, contract public defender for West Valley?

Uh, it's the law firm of, uh, Larson and Larson. They're the public defender office for, i, I wanna say a half a dozen, uh, cities in the Wasatch area. And I, I know you don't speak for them, but do you reckon they have the capacity to comply with, uh, the new court standard? Their staff is about the same as ours is. So they can do their job just fine and have with a reasonable accommodation, with a schedule, and they're just like us. They're not gonna be able to successfully do this, uh, in front of 30 judges. Uh, we're, we're doing our best for these first few months of implementation, but to, as they're adding more and more judges, we're already kind of bursting at the seams and about to fail.

Um, and and you said that, uh, you have about 1000 cases that you deal with each year,

Correct? Uh, uh, district court cases. We have many, many more in our Justice court.

Um, okay. And then when you refer to the thousand district court cases, those are both Class A misdemeanors and the Denovo Appeals and the transfers?

Yes. Um, and one last question.

I know, I know that you guys have had kind of a dedicated space in like drudge trees and a few other, uh, courtrooms. How long have you guys, um, been able to have that dedicated space in Judge Theresa's courtroom?

The district court has assigned West Valley, specifically three judges, uh, for well over 30 years. And 30, yes. Okay. Judge Theresa is one of the three currently, uh, along with Judge, uh, Johnson and Judge, well Petit until July of 2025 when they all had to, well, that was the old model where we had three judges. We had, we appeared in front of each one of them one day, uh, a month or sometimes two or three days a month. And now we are currently, uh, our assignments are in front of about 20 judges. Uh, that will change in July to be all 30 judges or 31 32 judges. Okay. So we are getting squeezed little by little, uh, as they're adding more and more judges kind of as we've phased in this new process.

Appreciate that, Mr. Robinson. Appreciate that. Mr. Chair. Uh, thank you for granting me leave to ask so many questions. I'll stop now, uh, and allow someone else to ask some questions.

It feels that way. Uh, this session. My name is Michael Drexel. I am the Assistant State Court Administrator, and I'm pleased to be with you today. Um, I'm a little frustrated with the way that this was presented to you all. Um, and I understand the concerns that have been expressed, and I understand that those concerns are legitimate. It seems to me that what was presented is that the district court in, in third district in Salt Lake County, kind of arbitrarily decided that we don't care about doing work, um, in, uh, in a way that's accommodating to the public, that we're not thinking about victims, that we don't care about the burden on law enforcement, that we're just solely interested in making judges jobs easy. Everyone's scoop of ice cream is the same size, and that's our pinnacle of our priorities. And that couldn't be further from the truth. What you heard from Ryan Robinson is that they have a thousand cases in district court. Well, there were 116,000 cases in district court in third district last year. So they are an, an infant isal part of a huge amount of case casework that happens in the district courts. And what they're suggesting is that they should have some sort of special treatment above and beyond all of the litigants that are coming to court. They should get dedicated judges that can facilitate their calendars, even though everyone else doesn't get that same treatment. And that's a real challenge. And yes, we have been able to try and accommodate that for a long time. But when you start looking at the impacts on, uh, the management of criminal cases, here's an example. We try and consolidate a single defendant in front of a single judge to the extent we can so that those cases are heard in a consistent way. But if West Valley City's criminal cases are being heard by a specific subset of judges, then that defendant's cases are over in that judge's court and not in this judge's court. We have teams of judicial assistance that assist the judges in preparing their calendars and staffing those taking minutes, getting everything ready. The teams that worked on West Valley City cases were overburdened among all of their colleagues, and we saw turnover in those teams more so than in other teams, because they had to work harder to accommodate West Valley City's cases. Those are just a few examples. I could give you more, but this was a very thoughtfully approached conversation that extended over the course of more than a year. In fact, conversations on this started back in 2019. I know, I'm, I, I don't wanna take too much time, but I want to share two other things. There. There are two problems that are created by the decision that has been made to try and equalize the distribution of these cases, not just because it benefits the courts, but to equalize the cases in terms of access to the courts generally treating West Valley City and all of the other people who are coming to court on the same footing and not giving special access. There's a high volume case issue that's West Valley City caught up in our solution to distributing those cases where all of the other cities in Salt Lake County, uh, they don't have the high volume issue. They have a low volume issue. I think we can solve the city's problems in the low volume context. We can figure out a way to, uh, to, to not impair their ability to prosecute those cases without creating disproportionate impacts or carving out special consideration for them. And we're working on that. The other thing I would say is this, and this is maybe the most important thing I'd wanna leave you with, and I know I know who I'm speaking to, so I'm not trying to pick a fight. I promise this is about not liking the way that the judiciary is being administered. And Article eight, section 12 of the Utah Constitution says that the Judicial Council will administer the judiciary, but because they're dissatisfied with the way that it's being administered, they've come to you and asked you to administer the judiciary in statute House. Bill 360 6 asks you to administer the judiciary in statute. And the Constitution says it should be by rule through the Judicial council. This problem is in the wrong place to find a solution. And again, I'm not trying to pick a fight on that. I'm just trying to tell you that please don't administer the judiciary and statute. That's not the way the law is set up. We're opposed to it for that reason. But we do want to continue the conversation and try and find some solutions here.

Mr. Chair? I hope I, I hope I understand the question. I wanna be responsive. Every defendant is entitled to a speedy trial under the state and federal constitution. It gets tricky to try and balance out who can get to trial when resources are constrained, who gets to go first. And there are a number of considerations that exist. It's not made simpler by carving out a subset and putting them in front of a specific group of judges. Um, I don't know, though that this is a speedy trial issue, and I don't know that that's should weigh heavily on your minds as you try and decide what to do with House Bill 360 6.

Thank you, Mr. Vice chair, members of the committee. My name's Aaron Jemison. I'm the Director of Public Policy at the Utah Domestic Violence Coalition, and our public policy Committee actually has not yet had a chance to form a public, an official position on this bill. But I just wanted to weigh in, um, around always keeping in mind the issue of, uh, victim and survivor access to the courts. We know that there's a lot that we can't control around how a victim's case moves forward. Um, but if we can do anything that allows someone to more easily participate in the process, then that I, then I think that should be part of the conversation. Um, my, uh, current soapbox this session is that, uh, the prosecutor's voices and the law enforcement voices are not the same as a victim or a victim advocate's voice. And we need to have that voice strongly represented when we're looking at these bills. The, um, question about the legislature, uh, telling the judiciary how to be administ, how to administer themselves is far above my pay grade. I just wanted to make sure that we are thinking about, uh, victim access when it comes to, um, issues around travel. And people who are often don't have access to their family's finances are now trying to support their children on their own. Don't have childcare, can't get to, to places that are far from their home. And just keeping that in mind as you consider the bill. So thank you.

You, Mr. Chair. Justin Lee, deputy Director, Utah League of Cities and Towns. I just wanna get up and, uh, maybe foot stomp a couple of comments that have been made. Um, don't wanna take too much time since there's already been a lot of comment. Uh, but one, uh, representative Patricia brought this up that, uh, until the last couple of days, we thought this was something that was limited to Salt Lake County. Uh, over the last couple of months, that's where we've been having those discussions. But in the last, uh, 24 hours even, we've started having, uh, cities reach out from the fourth district in Utah County and bringing up their, having similar scheduling issues. So this is, this is larger than, than what we thought it was. Uh, like I said, even the last, uh, couple of days. Um, our preference would also be to figure this out without having to have legislation. Um, and we've been in con been been in conversations appreciating Michael for taking time, um, with us, uh, on multiple occasions to have discussions around this. But we haven't quite gotten a resolution yet. So because of that, uh, we are in support of the bill moving forward, but hope we can find a resolution elsewhere. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Uh, Conrad Hay, and I'm the, uh, city prosecutor for Saratoga Springs in regard to, uh, Utah County. Let me just give, uh, uh, this committee some background. So in 2024, we discovered that the district court in American Fork was going to close down. As a result of that, those two judges were gonna be transferred to Provo, uh, in the new courtroom there, we, I was engaged with, uh, other city prosecutors trying to coordinate with the Provo judges. Uh, and there's currently 15 judges there in Provo, district Court judges, uh, where we attempted to see if we could get a judge, one judge who would just address all of our Class A misdemeanors. We had that luxury for four years. Uh, uh, while I was a prosecutor here, uh, in the American Fork District Court, uh, every Tuesday and every Wednesday, those two judges would hear all of our Class A misdemeanors. Uh, it was convenient to our victims in domestic violence cases. Uh, it was convenient to our officers, uh, to just travel from Saratoga Springs to American Fork. Uh, so it was, it was a great benefit to us prosecuting Class A misdemeanors. Uh, when we met with the district court judges in Provo, uh, the decision was made that there would not be one judge assigned to the city cases. Uh, that those cases, those class A misdemeanors would be distributed among the 15 judges. Uh, I know, uh, Lehi, American Fork, I believe Pleasant Grove, a couple other cities, I believe Linden all decided that they would take their Class A misdemeanors and give them to the Utah County Attorney. We made a conscientious decision to keep those misdemeanors, thinking that by myself, I could handle the Class A misdemeanors in Provo. Uh, so that started, uh, in January, 2025. It lasted about two months. Uh, what we quickly discovered is I would drive down to Provo, uh, had to get there around eight 30 in the morning, juggle three or four different courtrooms, and then I had the beeline at back to Saratoga Springs to handle our Justice court calendar, uh, where the judge would cover Class B, C, and, and infractions. Then I would turn around and go back to the district court in the afternoon because another Class A was scheduled for an in-person appearance. After, uh, several weeks of doing that, I talked to our city attorney, Kevin Thurman, and told him, I said, we, we cannot sustain this. Uh, I cannot be in Provo in the morning, come back, cover the Justice Court here in Saratoga Springs, and then turn around and go back to Provo for all these in-person, uh, court cases. Unfortunately, we had several incidences where victims of domestic violence suffered. Uh, specifically one time I was in one courtroom, I informed the judge, uh, clerk as well as the marshal that I had to go downstairs to another courtroom, and I would be back as quickly as I could. By the time I got back to that courtroom, that judge had dismissed the domestic violence case because I was not there. And I had to explain that. And that was a difficult decision or a di difficult discussion with that domestic violence victim as to why that happened. Um, so we are clearly advocating, uh, that this, uh, committee passed this bill. Uh, we believe that not only will streamline our Class A misdemeanors, uh, but we were gonna, but we would have more, uh, involvement in those cases with our victims here in Saratoga Springs, as opposed to having them drive all the way down to Provo, which is a 45 minute drive one way. Um, I've fielded several calls from victims, uh, in domestic violence cases, uh, asking why they need to drive all the way down to Provo to meet with the Utah County Prosecutor.

Thank you Chair. Um, my name is, uh, Jacob Summers. I'm the Deputy City Attorney for Orem City. Uh, worked for Orem for almost 17 years. Orem prosecuted Class A misdemeanors since, uh, the circuit court days. Um, we, uh, were faced in a similar situation that about one year ago, August of 2024, well, sorry, 2025, um, the fourth district court unilaterally told us that we would no longer have a, a calendar, and we made the decision to discontinue our prosecution of cases of Class A misdemeanors. However, um, that problem wasn't alleviated by us discontinuing, prosecuting Class A misdemeanors. Uh, we have a caseload of maybe 20 Justice Court de novo appeals and transfers, and we are thrown into the spin cycle where we don't know which judge will be assigned. Uh, we've had issues with scheduling with last minute court notices where we now have to appear in an afternoon. Our prosecution staff consists of two full-time prosecutors. Uh, we are in our justice court Monday through Thursday with a caseload of well over 1500 cases that are misdemeanor cases, plus about 6,000 traffic cases assigned to that justice court. But yet we have to allocate at least one prosecutor each day of the week to cover a one de novo appeal or one transfer case where that full-time prosecutor will sit and we sit behind the felony calendar. Uh, they do not take our misdemeanor cases as a priority, and we sit behind the felony calendar. Um, initially we did reach out to the presiding judge and the associate presiding judge and try to work out and negotiate some sort of scheduling arrangement that would provide consistency and efficiency for law enforcement, our office victims and victim advocates. Um, that was met with a, a statement that they would try to accommodate us and arrange a convenient schedule. Uh, we have not received any sort of, uh, scheduling arrangement. Um, some judges will allow us to appear by WebEx to, uh, mitigate travel burdens and our, our court scheduling conflicts. However, there are other judges within the fourth and District Court that have gone out of their way to explicitly deny WebEx and will not allow us to appear in person because they do not view that our court conflict, uh, necessitates appearance by WebEx. Um, so we are in support of HB 360 6, is it would help mitigate, um, many of the wasted time and efforts and resources to cover a handful of de novo appeals and transfer cases. Thank you. I apologize. Thank you. All right.

My name is Josh Larson. I'm a partner with the law firm of Larson, Larson Nash and Larson. And I will just largely echo what Mr. Robinson said. The, with these changes, things have become very inefficient, uh, where we used to have three fixed judges on three fixed calendars. We could come with multiple attorneys and handle many cases, and now we are in court every day for handling less cases for longer periods of time. It's become very inefficient, spread between multiple judges, multiple locations on every day of the week. We're unable to appear via WebEx, largely because our clients often are in custody or possibly have unreliable means of contacting them. And so we are unable to use WebEx often, and we are in court required now, uh, daily in different courts. It's become very inefficient, will likely result in, in a need for additional attorneys. If this continues, we'll need to hire additional attorneys, which will be mean additional cost to the contract and the taxpayers. It additionally, I would echo the comments that it is inconvenient for defendants. They often are unsure if they are going to Salt Lake or to West Jordan in which courtroom, um, they may be a co-defendant with someone and, and one co-defendant has to go to one place and the other other co-defendant goes to another PLA place and they end up in court mixed in with many other unrelated cases, jockeying for position to have our cases handled. Our office has a contract with Murray, west Valley and Bluffdale and Salt Lake, Salt Lake County, as well as Saratoga Springs in the Utah County. As you've heard from Mr. Han, that contract has been largely modified due to the circumstances there and the travel difficulties of getting to Provo for defendants. Um, for 30 some odd years, the system has worked well and this bill will restore that, and we support that.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, may I ask a question of the representative for the courts?

Mr. Drexel. So I've been hearing a lot of conversations from the Utah County attorneys that were online about the American Fork Court, but I am not as familiar with what the dynamic is and what happened there. Would you be able to talk a little bit about that?

Um, yes. Uh, thank you for the question, Madam Chair. Um, so in 2024, we, the judiciary of the state courts learned that American Fork wanted their building back and they basically evicted the district court. I say that nicely from the American Fork location. So we had to cease doing operations in that courthouse completely, and that wasn't something that we wanted to see happen. Um, American Fork at that time then also took over responsibility for prosecuting their own cases that had been historically been handled in the district court there, which included a bunch of what would otherwise be Justice Court eligible cases. But American Fork had been doing those, um, in the district court. This is all, goes back to the nineties when there was a transition from the circuit courts to the district courts and justice courts that we have today. Um, we took a $350,000 budget cut as part of the closure of the American Fort Courthouse, even though we didn't lose any staff or judges. And those judges were forced to consolidate in the Provo Courthouse. We didn't have any choice in that. The legislature approved that. And, and that's part of how State Code operates. So it should come as no surprise then that in light of those changes, which we didn't go looking for, there are resource constraints that then have to drive consideration, reconsideration of how do we continue to accommodate a particular type of entity or a particular class of, of entities like cities who have to be prosecuting in district court among all of the other people who also have to be prosecuting in district court. In other words, yes, it would be extremely efficient for the cities to have dedicated calendars, dedicated times dedicated space with judges that no other entities have. That's very efficient. I totally understand that. And I would want that too if I were a city. But that efficiency comes at the cost of, of efficiency for everyone else too. If we prioritize that work, if we structure that work in that way, what we're saying is do this work this way, and the other work waits just a little bit longer, or the other work gets piled onto other judges in a different way in order to try and be even handed and say, if you, if you are going to be prosecuting in district court, then be in district court. And we treat everyone in district court this way. It required us to make some of these changes. Well, required a hard word. We chose to make some of these changes in order to even handedly administer the judiciary. The American Fork thing is unfortunate though. I think all of us wish we were still in American Fork. Madam Chair, may I ask a follow up? Yes. Uh, so with the closing of the American Fork, has there been discussion about trying to, 'cause there's a Le Lehi, Saratoga Springs, um, American Fork, that's like a huge growing area, the whole northern Utah County. Yeah. Has there been conversations to put a district court up there again to kind of replace the American Fork location? Uh, Madame Chair there, there's not a location for it. Um, there would need to be a new building or a new lease, new state funds that would be made available to secure a location or build something in that way. The priority. Currently Provost Courthouse is relatively new and had space for these judges to occupy. And there are other greater needs in terms of judicial facilities around the state, not the least of which are Farmington and Cedar City. And so, um, yes, there's always a way if there are resources and, and a desire, but currently, I don't think there's, uh, resources.

Okay. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank You.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm wondering if I could ask a question of the sponsor.

what we're talking about here is just the class a's, no, it's, does West Valley City have a justice court? They do. Okay. And so any appeal out of that Justice Court gets appealed To the district. So it's class a's and appeals. Mm-hmm. But then cities that don't have, uh, justice Courts, those will go to the district court. Right. So remind me why we don't allow class a's in Justice Court. Do you know? And would that be a simpler fix?

I dunno the history, I maybe I could defer to Ryan who knows the history of that. I don't know that I have a great answer for that.

But, uh, to go, just before I started, uh, my, my work, uh, we had circuit courts in the nineties and they did Class A misdemeanors. I know that, uh, Senator Colmore explored that in his, uh, justice Court reform bill over the last two years. And I just don't think that we got to a great policy where everybody felt good about it. I, I can't really articulate Well, why, other than it's pretty nuanced and there's pros and cons to that approach. And I'd, I'd probably be in favor of it. It was some anyway beyond probably what you need to know. But, uh, it, it's, we determined it wasn't a simple thing to, to just add Class A to Justice Court. My guess is part of it is the Justice courts are not courts of record. And so when you talk about a class A misdemeanor, there's certain rights that come, like a preliminary hearing that you don't get with a, well, I think is it now you do get it with a B or a CI can't remember. You Get it with an A but not in Justice Court. Yeah. You don't get it in Justice Court. And so because of that court of record issue, I think that's why they have, it makes more sense. It's much more judicially, uh, economical, I think to hurt, hear it in the district court. Otherwise, these Class A misdemeanors essentially get two bites of the apple every time that you go. So if you were to put those class a's in the, in the Justice court, it would add a ton of additional work to the district court. 'cause every defendant that that was found guilty would just appeal. That was discussed in the Justice court reform is should we do a constitutional amendment? And I think that's where it got a little like, well, that's, that's a heavier lift.

Thank you Madam Chair. There are no substitutes to this. Correct. Okay, then I would move that we favorably recommend House Bill 360 6.

Um, there's been a lot of robust discussion on this Madam Chair, and I think it warrants further discussion.

Well, I, I appreciate the, the discussion that we've had so far, and I, I think clearly the committee can see the impact that this has had on cities. Um, the one thing I just wanted to spend a a second talking about is, is again, the, the court's, um, You know, belief that this, this clearly, uh, interferes with their ability to administer. If you look at the Utah Constitution in Article eight, section 12, uh, it says there is a, there is created a judicial council which shall adopt rules for the administration of the courts of the state. I think that's clear and, and has been interpreted such that, that, that falls within the jurisdiction of the court. There is a lot of room for administration that continues to happen on these cases. Regardless of whether, or even if this bill were to pass who the judge is who gets assigned to these cases, when it is scheduled, what their calendar looks like, the order of cases, uh, the time of the day that they're gonna do all of that is still within the administration of the court. And the court can administer it. However it likes. This does not interfere with that at all. But like I said before, this is wading into a policy discussion because it is having an impact on these cities that is changing the way that they are able to provide, um, resources to be able to, to meet the needs of their cities. And when you wade into those policy decisions, that becomes the purview of the legislature to step in and say whether or not, uh, this, this should happen or shouldn't. What we're doing here is just bringing this bill back to the way it has been treated for the last 30 years that has worked for the courts, that's worked for defendants, it's worked for victims and has worked for prosecutors. And so I urge your support.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, this one's hard because I, I understand keenly, um, the competing interests and it's particularly difficult when both competing interests are very valid. Um, what I'm going to do today is vote yes with a keen hope that that'll help get this bill through. And then I really hope that the parties that be or very intelligent, capable attorneys, uh, figure something out. And I reserve my right to vote no on the floor. Um, I just, I think that there's a resolution here and I, I don't know that the legislature's the best place to resolve it. I think it's the parties that need to do the scheduling that can, and I have confidence that they can. Um, I, I understand the prerogative of the courts. Um, they're in a really tough spot. They don't have a lot of resources. Um, and they've gotta juggle a lot of cases. And I do understand their argument, uh, both constitutionally and administratively that they can't make special accommodations for particular parties. Uh, that being said, um, knowing that West Valley is prosecuted misdemeanors with special accommodations for the last three decades, and another prosecutor mentioned that they were doing this since they moved over in Circuit Court, that was 1996. Um, there, there's a form of estoppel I think that happens here. Um, and so I would, I would encourage, um, the parties to, to, to work on this. And I hope that, uh, this bill heading towards the house floor adds a little bit of encouragement, uh, for everyone to work together. I don't think that West Valley should be put out of business Um, the West Valley is generous enough to put up about a dozen lawyers, both prosecutors and defense lawyers, to, uh, cover, um, a, a gap in our criminal justice system. If they're out of the picture here, that goes over to the Salt Lake District Attorney's Office that goes over to LDA for coverage of the public defender services. And that means that Salt Lake County needs to dig even deeper for no good reason. Uh, so I, I'm hoping here that we could find a good accommodation. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll just add that, um, I also would, would hope that the courts would be able to come to a compromise of work with everyone. Um, there are two issues as they talked about these, these low volume cases that cities like South Jordan that I represent deal with. They, they don't prosecute the A's and they are severely impacted. And a lot of the other cities, uh, across the county that don't prosecute a's that are, that are impacted. There was talk from the court that they felt like they had a solution here. What I've heard from those cities is that the, the, the, what the court has offered so far is not acceptable and that they want to see this bill passed. Now, that's one area that I think could easily be solved. Then you've got this high volume issue here with cities like West Valley or Saratoga Springs, or Orange City that want to go and prosecute that. And maybe future cities within Salt Lake County or Utah County or other places in the state. We've gotta be able to accommodate that and solve the problem if the courts can do it. I think that is great. Be happy to withdraw the bill. Um, otherwise this is the best solution we have.

Thank you Mr. Chair, and thanks for passing out that handout that gives a little bit of background on this. Um, as many of you know, um, typically municipal, um, cases are heard in justice courts. Um, if those cases and, and those cases would include your class, uh, B class C misdemeanors and infractions. Uh, if those cases are appealed, then they're heard de novo at the district court level. Um, we also have granted the ability for cities to prosecute Class A misdemeanors. If they do that, then they have to bring those cases, uh, in a district court for the original jurisdiction. So for for much of Utah's histories, those appeals or the cases that were heard, uh, that were class A misdemeanors, um, there was an accommodation made by the courts to hear those cases, typically on a single day of the week in front of a single judge or a group of a small group of judges, depending on the number of cases a municipality had, uh, to accommodate cities that that typically have very small staffs to be able to, to go and prosecute these cases. Um, for, for some reason, uh, in the last year in the third district, the, uh, the court decided to change this policy and to farm those cases out like they would any other cases across, uh, 30 plus different judges in Salt Lake County in two different, um, courthouses. Um, after filing the bill, I found out that, uh, a similar practice had changed in the fourth district as they closed the American Fort Court. And, uh, those cases got aggregated all in the Provo fourth district court, um, that, that cities no longer had that accommodation as well. And in talking with other, um, cities across the state, there are concerns in the second district and the fifth district, um, and others that the court may change this practice, um, that we've had. This makes it extremely difficult, um, for city prosecutors, for victims, for defendants, uh, that are used to having this, this single day. And in some cases, um, being asked to be in multiple locations, uh, and in front of different judges, and they just don't have the staff to be able to do that, which has led to, to some cases even being dismissed, um, because of a failure to prosecute. So, uh, what this bill does is just go back to the situation that we had, uh, beforehand. That requires the courts to, to pick a, a singular, um, uh, uh, day. It, uh, it requires a, a presiding judge of each district to assign at least one district court judge to hear the city's municipal cases and limit that assignment to no more, uh, than one judge for every 500 municipal cases per year. It also requires that those cases be heard in the closest location to that municipality. So if there are two different courthouses within, uh, the judicial district, then, uh, whatever, uh, courthouse is closest to the city, that's, that's the one that it should be heard in. Unless, uh, the presiding judge finds that, or, or the, yeah, the presiding judge finds there's good cause for the municipal case to be heard in a different location. Maybe the def it's closer for the defendant or it's closer for the victims or something, then they could make that accommodation. But generally it would be the one that is closest, um, to the city that's prosecuting the case. Um, this should really, uh, increase efficiency, um, for our cities. It allows them to actually hear these cases. And, and I think something that is important, as, as I mentioned, the legislature has given these cities the ability to prosecute, uh, these Class A misdemeanors in some cases. Uh, if they aren't prosecuted by the cities, they just don't get prosecuted at all. And, uh, by the way that the, the court has changed this process. It is making some of these cities, many of the cities say that they just cannot prosecute these Class A misdemeanors anymore, which could lead to a number of victims just not getting any relief or justice being served. So I've got, uh, Ryan Robinson here who is the city prosecutor in West Valley cities well aware of, of this situation and, and, uh, he can add more color to what I've presented.

Thank you. Uh, good morning, Mr. Chair and committee. Um, my name's Ryan Robinson. I, I am the West Valley City, uh, prosecutor. I'm also the policy director for swap the Statewide Association of Prosecutors. So I'm kind of speaking today, wearing, wearing both of those hats. This is a, uh, one of only four bills that swap, uh, assign or made a priority bill for us to work on getting supported this year. Um, for 30 plus years longer than I've been a prosecutor, uh, cities have been in a Juab in a district court setting, either doing, uh, their appeals or doing class A cases. And for those 30 plus years, the district court in every county that I'm aware of, has accommodated cities so that they can, uh, meet the demands of their caseload, uh, with some sense of efficiency, uh, understanding that most city prosecutors' offices are as small as one person or even one part-time person. Uh, and, uh, west Valley's one of the biggest. We have three full-time prosecutors dedicated to the district court. Um, and that's in part because we do our own class A misdemeanors filing approximately a thousand, uh, misdemeanor class A cases a year in the, uh, Salt Lake County District Court. Um, and for those 30 years, they've given us, uh, for West Valley, specifically three judges, uh, usually on our own kind of West Valley Day, uh, where we weren't intermixed with the felony calendar. And, um, from our perspective, it's worked really well. It's been super efficient, and we've appreciated them accommodating us. They've done the same thing for our, our colleagues in, uh, Salt Lake County that have smaller caseloads. And I understand that's more or less how it works or has worked just about everywhere. Um, for some reason, uh, in 2025 that ended, uh, both in, uh, Salt Lake County and, uh, Utah County, uh, west Valley, uh, now faces, uh, appearing in front of, uh, 32 judges five days a week in two different buildings that are 20 miles away from each other. And again, I have three full-time prosecutors. Uh, so you can kind of see that the math doesn't math for that. Uh, it's, it's almost, well, it is an essentially a crisis for our office. We are gonna have to, uh, if we don't have an accommodation, uh, consider not, uh, uh, filing class a misdemeanors, uh, even in the Juab, even amongst smaller cities that only do justice court appeals, they're in the same situation. I've been in courtrooms where their cases were dismissed because they were required to be in two different locations at once and didn't make their, you know, court date at the right time, at the right moment. And, uh, cases get dismissed and, uh, you know, justice isn't served, uh, when that happens. Obviously. Um, cities in Utah County just in the last few months have elected not to, uh, file class a misdemeanors. I I think you'll probably hear for from one or two of them who, uh, want to speak from online about their experience that, uh, this, so it's not just a Salt Lake County problem anymore. Uh, maybe it never was, but, uh, I've been alerted to the crisis that it's happening for them as well. Um, this isn't just bad for prosecutors, uh, I think it's bad for everybody. We're asking, uh, homeless people that live in Salt Lake City primarily to try and find transportation to get to West Jordan for their misdemeanor cases. Uh, we're asking domestic violence victims in, say, Bluffdale, to figure out how to get to the Matheson Courthouse downtown Salt Lake for their to be heard as a, as a victim in their cases, you know, as they drive literally by a court that's right next to their, uh, municipality in West Jordan. Um, I, I think we can all agree that, uh, justice is best served when it's closest to the people. Um, we've been working with the courts, at least West Valley has since April. I've met with them half a dozen times at this point. Uh, I've worked with them even as recently as yesterday. We're, we're working towards, I think, more so than ever trying to find a compromise. Um, we're not quite there yet. I I don't know if we will be by the end of the session and we are asking the court, uh, excuse me, the court, that's who I usually appear in front of. I'm asking this committee to move this bill forward.

Yeah, I, I'm sure the courts would say, and I'm sure you'll hear from them today, that they, they, that they have less resources than ever, that their caseloads are high, and that maybe they're trying to create efficiencies, uh, within their system, uh, which, uh, is of, of course, unfortunately creating huge inconsist inefficiencies in, in everybody else's system. Um, but I certainly, uh, have empathy for the fact that they're working on a, on a thin budget and, you know, trying to figure out how to make their own, you know, system work for them. I think that's really the only difference. Uh, uh, bigger cases, less judges, uh, they'll tell you and, and we'll agree they could use more judges, you know, as the years go by and our population increases. And I, and I'll add Mr. Chair, I, I kind of alluded to it, but I know in, um, in Utah County, the, uh, the American Fork Courthouse closed. So that required a, a move and a change that, uh, that moved all of those cases to the, the Provo fourth District court. And I think it's just as part of that change, they, they decided that it would make sense or there'd be efficiencies to just treat them like having any other case. You say the court moved, did they shut it down? Did we lose a judge? Or the courts can talk about it, but they, their lease expired or, or was not renewed in American Fork.

Committee members. Good morning. My name is Adam Craig. I actually own the largest, um, private public defender firm in the state of Utah. I service from Lehi to Woods Cross and almost every city in between. But I'm also conflicted because I also own the Salt Lake County Conflict contract, and we also provide the federal contract services as a CJA. So one of the things that I wanna make sure we understand is, is when we appeal a case that case is being assigned from to, from the 80 80 Southwest Jordan ro uh, courthouse to the downtown Courthouse. Now, one of the things that I think we also need to remember is that for legal defenders in these types of categories on justice courts, typically for the last 30 years, our payment has been $150 per case. Uh, let me repeat that. $150 per case, which then means when we appeal. So let's say I get a South Jordan appeal, or I get a Draper appeal, or I get a, uh, holiday Cottonwood Heights appeal, I then have to staff that case for $150 to go to a different court to be covered by different judges. And I get that this is a big, a much bigger problem and in the courts are gonna address that. But I wanna make sure that we understand that there's gotta be some more consistency here. We've gotta be able to have a certain judge that can hurry, hear certain Wasatch Front cases in a certain court because for us to maintain and to even walk away feeling good about $150, and again, legal defender work is pro bono work. It's lower fee work, but you have to have competent, rational adults, lawyers that are doing it and that can provide the best legal services possible. What this bill does is assists us to have continuity. It assists us in having judges that we can rely on, that we know we're gonna be in front of. It establishes consistencies with prosecutors. It establishes the ability to make sure that we're doing the job correctly and we're doing it right. So from our perspective, and I know the courts are under a lot of strain already, I get that, but so are we. So are we. And for me to have to send five different legal defenders to five different courts to get paid what we get paid, it's why we do things under foundations. It's why we do things to try to make sure that the best legal defense is provided. But it really causes, and I know when we talk about indigent defense, it's hard because we have to fund it, but if you do not have people who are willing to step up and do it, you will not, you'll run into much bigger problems because then you're gonna get way more appeals and you'll just even keep overloading the system. So I understand that this is not the greatest workaround for everybody, but we have to figure this out. And as of right now, this is the best workaround. It's giving consistency and it's providing a basis for us where I know I don't have to keep sending legal defenders all over the, from the Redwood Road location to the Salt Lake County location. It can be consistently delegated and it can be. And, and then the other issue is in our justice courts when we appeal, we also have a lot of homeless and indigent folks that, that will not get on the tracks, and if they do get on the tracks, they may get arrested for getting on the tracks for not paying for riding the tracks down to the location. So, I mean, there's so much more complexity going on here, so it does allow for us to have a little bit more consistency. So we would ask you to, uh, recommend this to pass this bill and let it move forward. Thank you. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer

Hi. Thank you. My name's Ryan Richards. I'm a, I've worked as a prosecutor for Salt Lake City. I'm a former judge and I'm currently a partner at Cadel Law, which is a law firm that specializes in representing, um, municipalities and local governments. We provide prosecution services. Um, in the past we've provided prosecution services for roughly a dozen, um, municipalities and a county throughout the state that I'd like to make clear that this is not a bill about judicial Independence. I have been on record and I am a fierce, fierce advocate of judicial Independence. This doesn't dictate outcomes, it doesn't infringe on judicial decision making, and ultimately the terms of the bill still rests all power with the courts when they have a good reason to do things. This isn't a partisan issue, it's not a bill that's just about West Valley City and them getting special accommodations. This is a bill that ultimately in my mind is about justice and access to justice. It's, quite frankly, it's merely an extension of an already existing statutory framework that by my research we have roughly 20 other statutes that dictate to the courts when cases will be heard, where they'll be heard. And no one has ever argued that that is outside the purview of the legislature to do that. As has been noted, this isn't just something for prosecutors, this isn't just something for defense attorneys. This bill is a common sense remedy to a huge problem. I, I've heard, um, one of the members of this committee asked, well, can you give real examples? I've pulled up my calendar of cases that we've had where we were, for example, on October 14th, 15th and 16th in three different courts where previously those cases would've been consolidated on a single calendar that we've had days where we are to be in both the West Jordan Justice Court and the Salt, or the West Jordan District Court rather. And the Salt Lake District Court. At the same time that another entity that provides similar services for cities has basically gone out of business. They have shut up shop and said, we cannot do this anymore. It's not a profitable model because we can employ a whole nother person to go hear these appeals on the same day that they were supposed to be in the justice course. It used to be that Justice Courts could schedule around when things were gonna be in the district court and make sure that you don't have a conflict there either. Instead of now we potentially have three different courts where sometimes a single prosecutor for a small city is supposed to be all at the same time. I am personally aware of cases that have been dismissed because they couldn't do that As a former judge, I will tell you, judges can be myopic. We all view our own calendar as the most important one I think you may hear from some other people will tell you they've had the experiences of judges not being willing to continue or move cases simply because something is scheduled in another hearing. Even when that happens, it delays the case and pushes it out to have to make these types of continuances. Um, the city I was a judge in, we had the men's homeless Resource center there and we served the unsheltered population at that time. We used to be able to arrange rides for people to get to court who had no way to do that. Well, I'll tell you, I know they're not gonna be able to do that in the same way to drive different people. Again, you used to be able to say, okay, well it's on this day, we can get these people together and we can arrange a ride to help people that don't have access. The same thing for vulnerable victims. You can't do that four days a week to two different courts sometimes on the same day, that as a judge and as a prosecutor, I would see victims basically tell me, this just isn't worth it. This is too much effort, this is too hard, and give up and fail to pursue justice. We've passed bills in the past to try to change that. And I would say that this bill helps the practice of the courts that is eviscerated those bills. For example, removal of domestic violence cases was predicated on, on the idea that we weren't gonna make domestic violence victims potentially have to go to multiple courts, multiple places and draw out, um, their proceedings that now numerous cities have told me we will never remove a case because we can't operate in the district courts because of this problem. Effectively eviscerating that bill that again, I would just like to iterate. This is not about prosecutions, this is not about West Valley seeking special accommodations has been said in the past. This is about access to justice for every participant in the justice system. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the committee, Cameron Dill, executive director of the Utah League of Cities and Towns. And in addition to the great testimony and examples that you've heard to date, I just want to make sure that the committee understands the types of cities that have contacted us in support of this bill. And the league is supportive of the bill. So you've heard from West Valley City, which is, uh, one of the largest cities in the state, second largest city in the state. And as Ryan mentioned, they have, uh, three in-house prosecutors. But this, this also has a disproportionate impact on our small to mid-size cities, uh, many of whom only employ one prosecutor who's now being sent in multiple directions. And in, in some of those smaller city cases, they have decided to stop prosecuting those Class A misdemeanors because they can't make it work based on these changes. And so we've heard from Payson, we've heard from Saratoga Springs, we've heard from Pleasant Grove, we've heard from, uh, other large cities like Orem and, and so there are quite a few cities in the, in the Salt Lake and Utah counties, uh, who've contacted us, uh, expressing support for this bill, concerns about the status quo and, and that's why the league is supportive of it. Thank you. Thank you.

Sorry, I should have filled the chair sooner. I apologize. Mr. Chair, my name's Michael Drexel. I'm the assistant state court administrator. Um, you might be all thinking, golly, the courts, uh, are the worst, uh, for a variety of reasons. Um, if I could speak to a few of the things that have been, uh, raised. You've heard things in the presentation today. Like, uh, this increases efficiency for these cities that we've accommodated the cities, that, um, that it's not a profitable model that, uh, that having the courts do the city work in a particular way, uh, increases access to justice for every participant in the judicial system. These are things that you just heard. What you didn't hear is that the municipal prosecution of criminal cases just in third district is if you combine all of it class A's Class B's, class C's, municipal, uh, entities in, in the district courts, it's 7% of criminal cases in the third district. We do 18,000 criminal cases in the third district every year, and they're responsible for about 1400. If you look at the non-class a misdemeanor criminal cases, it's 1% of criminal case filings in the district courts. And if you think about it in terms of the district court, not just doing criminal cases, we do 120,000 cases a year in third district alone, 120,000. And the municipal cities, they prosecute around 200 in third district of that 120,000. What we're trying to grapple with as a judiciary is making sure that the system works for every litigant in the district courts, not just creating special calendars for municipal prosecutors because it's efficient for them or because it creates a profitable model. It doesn't, uh, it doesn't afford greater access to justice for everybody. If courts are required to carve out special calendars to accommodate in perpetuity, I suppose is what people would want to accommodate. Uh, these specific case types. When we're trying to balance a system that has to address the broad swath of case filings, criminal probate, guardianship, domestic cases, general civil contract disputes, there are 33 judges in the third district and all of them have around three or 4,000 cases a year that they have to deal with. We're trying to figure out ways to do this that serve all of the people. Now, two points we have engaged in conversation with the cities, um, in third district. Now this is a bigger issue. I get that there's other parts of the state, but we're also in a compressed timeline. We made a proposal to the cities to get each of their cases in front of a single judge on a calendar where they could appear and have their cases heard in a consolidated manner. It had a small fiscal component to it because we have to adjust our systems to make those assignments happen. It was flatly rejected and they didn't come back to us with any counter proposal. House Bill 360 6 is the counter proposal. They want you as legislators to administer the judiciary because they disagree with a decision that was made to try and balance the workload across all cases, not just their cases. They're the only prosecuting entities that were getting special treatment. Uh, the district attorney, the county attorneys of each county, they have to come to court and prosecute their cases in the normal course of things. I'm not insensitive to the fact that this creates real burdens for them, but the judiciary doesn't exist solely for them to have a smooth path to prosecute their cases or defend in their cases when we have all of the rest of the citizens of the state of Utah to think about. Now, that's not to say that we're not willing to continue to sit down and try and find reasonable solutions to this. Coming to the legislature though, because they disagree with an administrative decision from within the judiciary to seek a legislative solution is a separation of powers issue Article, article eight, section 12 of the Utah Constitution says that the Judicial Council shall by create rules of administration for the judiciary. We've done that and we're administering their judiciary judiciary and people disagree with the way that that's happening. I don't fault them for being frustrated, but I do fault them for coming to you and asking you to administer the judiciary on their behalf in a way that's favorable to them at the expense of other people who have to litigate in those very same courts. So we want to continue talking about this. We want to try and find a solution. We don't want to see this solved legislatively. This should be a conversation that's happening with the Judicial Council. Um, I'm hopeful that you would pause this bill, hold it for a minute and see if we can get to a good place where we can have some reasonable solutions and continue to work on this over interim. Thank you.

Sure. That's a great question, Mr. Chair. I appreciate it. There are primarily two counties where this is an issue right now that I'm aware of in other places because of the smallness, uh, of the location, because of the limited number of judges, you're kind of already in front of just one judge like you are out from Duchesne County Land, right? Judge Kiara's, the District court judge out there. If you put all the cases on Judge Kiara's calendar, then all the cases can come to Judge Chira and it's a simple one stop shop solution for people. So there's not that issue in those sort of, uh, places in the state. Salt Lake County and Utah County are the two places where I understand this is primarily a problem. And I think we can have a, there's, there's two different issues going on in here. One is the Class A misdemeanor prosecution issue that's West Valley City that's Orem, that's Pace in Pleasant Grove, Saratoga Springs, like you heard from Cameron deal. These entities have elected to prosecute their Class A misdemeanors rather than have the county attorney do the prosecution of those cases. Most counties around the state are, are the county attorney's office is doing Class A misdemeanor prosecution because those Class A are much more like felony cases in terms of having a preliminary hearing, the potential that you might be sentenced to a prison sentence, et cetera. In Utah County on the class A misdemeanor prosecution issue, we had a location in American Fork forever. It was a holdover from when we were doing business as circuit courts, not district courts and justice courts. And the judges at the American Fork location of the district court were responsible for doing the equivalent of the justice court work they were doing American Forks Justice Court work as state court judges. And when that relationship ended, because American Fork needed the building space, uh, our judges had to go back to the Provo Courthouse. And so those misdemeanor calendars, generally, all of the misdemeanor calendars that those judges had been doing were disbanded. And the cases that remained, including the Class A misdemeanor were spread among the judges in the Provo Courthouse because everything was happening in the Provo Courthouse at that point in time. If we hadn't been removed from the American Fork Courthouse, I fully expect that they would still be doing those misdemeanor calendars there because we were obligated by law to be doing misdemeanor calendar work in that place. In your neck of the woods. It's somewhat similar. Roosevelt is a similar sort of place where there's a municipal calendar in Roosevelt because it's a holdover from back in the day when there were circuit courts. So that's one part of the problem in, in Salt Lake County, that problem is West Valley City does about a thousand cases while all of the other cities in Salt Lake County have 200 cases. So it's a thousand cases. It's like a a thousand pound cities. We have a solution for the other cities where they can be in front of a single judge, but the cities don't like it because it's not as convenient for them as just having one dedicated calendar where they all show up. Um, there's the low level misdemeanor prosecution, the Bs and Cs where people have to be in district. I think we can find a solution for that for everyone across the entire state. So it's, it's two locations primarily, and there are solutions for both. I think if we can continue talking, but I don't think it's a legislative solution.

Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair. Actually, caseload is part of it. The judges that were doing the municipal calendars had heavier caseloads than all of their colleagues, which meant longer calendars, which meant going into the lunch hour routinely for those calendars. In fact, the judges that had the West Valley City cases as well as the other municipal, uh, prosecutions in Salt Lake County would on average have 175 matters on their calendar on a given day. And so they would cut into the lunch hour, they would cut into the evening hour in order to accomplish that work. Meanwhile, the judicial assistance that support those teams are working harder than the other judicial assistance. And we lost some judicial assistance citing the increased caseload that they had to carry compared to the people who were doing the non municipal calendars because of volume. And we could have maybe put another, uh, special calendar together for the cities with another judge and distributed that workload. And then everything else that's not city prosecution becomes subject to the preference, uh, the expediting of the city prosecutions. So we didn't wanna do that. Uh, the workload is a, is a, is a, is a real issue, but it's not about keeping judges happy. It's about making sure that judges can manage the broad swath of cases they're asked to deal with. For instance, in statute, there are numerous, uh, timelines for judges to have to deal with where there's very little latitude to reschedule calendar, protective order hearings, eviction hearings. These sort of things require a relatively quick action. When you have calendars that are dedicated solely to a specific type of work, we can't then plug those cases into a, a municipal prosecution calendar. And so that judge becomes unavailable for a period of time to do those work. So we have a hard time meeting those statutory deadlines in certain cases. Another example is you end up with, uh, we, we try and put the same criminal defendant in front of the same judge across all of their cases. So you don't have multiple judges making decisions about a different defendant, about the same defendant's case. But when you carve all of the municipal prosecution into special judges' calendars, and those defendants are in front of those judges, then that means that we can't get that defendant in front of the judges that has all the other felony cases. So now you've got a judge with three felony cases and you've got the West Valley City calendar or the Sandy City appeal calendar with that same defendant in front of a different judge. And now we're having order to show causes in two different courts instead of one court. We have a judge maybe saying you're gonna go to prison while another judge is saying you're not gonna go to prison. And there's no coordination or consolidation of that because we've carved out special calendars to accommodate the cities. So there, there are caseload issues that are attended to this for sure.

Yes. And we, we don't have traveling judges And not in third district. Yeah.

There you go. Okay. Time Shortes, where you're from. Yeah. Thank you. Chair Committee members and where you're from. Uh, my name is Jake Summers. I'm the Deputy City Attorney for Orem City. Uh, prior to 2010, the City of Orem prosecuted all misdemeanor offenses that occurred in the City of War. And we did so in a district court building in War City itself. Um, however, for various reasons, um, Orem City opened a justice court in 2010. And since that time, Orem had prosecuted Class A misdemeanors in the fourth district court. And we were specifically assigned to the Spanish Fork Division of the fourth District court, not the American Fork Division, and not Provo, which were closer than the Spanish Fork Building. Um, but nonetheless, as, as a good partner in justice, we, we accepted that assignment. And since that time for a period of 15 years, we worked with Spanish Fork Division staff and the judge to effectively prosecute well over 350 Class A offenses each year in the fourth district court. Meanwhile, our prosecution team, which consists of two full-time attorneys, also prosecuted approximately 1200 misdemeanor cases. And in our justice court, our Justice Court operates Monday through Thursday from eight to five. And, um, we were assigned a Friday calendar, uh, to most effectively address our class A calendar. However, in August of 2024, Orem learned that the fourth district court had decided to reassign ORMs cases, um, from Spanish Fork, uh, to the Provo Division. And that when that assignment occurred, our cases would be randomly assigned to potentially nine different judges, uh, to be held Monday through, uh, Monday through Thursday. Uh, prior to this announcement, Orem had never been included in any discussions regarding the manner of the reassignment, or a way to express the burden on the resources that such a shift would cause for both our prosecution team as well as our Indi indigent defense team. Um, we had never prosecuted cases in the American Fork Division, and so the closure of the American Fork Division Courthouse really had no effect on Orams assignment in Spanish Fork. Um, at that point, Orem upon hearing rumors and, and, and this announcement, we requested a meeting with the presiding judge of the fourth district to attempt to work out some sort of a resolution. And the presiding, uh, judge graciously met with us and allowed us to prepare a memorandum for the fourth District court bench to consider. And we explained that this type of shift would pose a significant strain on both our prosecution and our public defenders. Um, however, the, for district court was unwilling to accommodate any sort of a scheduling solution that would not result in Orem having to dedicate, uh, duplicative resources in Provo and in our justice court. Um, and we were in a position in the middle of the budget. Um, this decision was made, uh, after our budget cycle had already concluded. So we were left in a really tough position that we would've had to double the size of our prosecution team and increase our pro our, our public defender budget. After, um, the budget cycle had already concluded, as Orem was unable to find a workable solution, uh, we were forced to stop the prosecution of Class A offenses. And we made that decision in August of 2024. And since August of 2024, we have not filed any Class A offense in the fourth district court. Um, while we had stopped filing Class A offenses, this scheduling change still has caused significant strain on the city and our public defenders. As you may or may not be aware, the appeal right out of a justice court is a de novo trial or a de novo hearing in the district court, and we handle approximately 50 appeal or transfer cases a year in the fourth district court. When we relinquished our Class A misdemeanor prosecution, we sought a separate compromise from the fourth district court, and we asked that any de novo appeal or transfer, uh, case would be assigned to a single judge or a single courtroom. Uh, we did not ask for a separate special calendar setting. Rather, we simply asked that our cases, our appeal cases be assigned to a single judge. And then to allow our prosecution team to work with the, that judge and that clerk, uh, team to effectively schedule our cases that would meet the needs of the indigent defense, the prosecution team, and the judicial team. This request was also denied by the fourth district court. Now, all of our appeal and transfer cases are assigned randomly to various judges in the Provo division. Routinely, the city has both indigent defense counsel and prosecution staff waiting in a felony, in a felony calendar. These matters, because they're misdemeanors, often get pushed to the end of the calendar. And because of that, it is not uncommon for our staff, um, our prosecution staff and the public defense to sit behind the felony calendar. That is a cattle call, meaning that all matters are scheduled at the same time, no matter what litigating parties are involved, they're all scheduled at eight o'clock or nine o'clock, and our staff sits for two hours waiting for our time that we can finally step in and handle a simple traffic infraction that has been appealed, or a misdemeanor DV case that has been appealed. However, if the city's appeal matters were consolidated to a single courtroom, orams cases could be grouped at a specific time of that law and motion calendar with the expectation that the defendants, the defense attorneys and prosecution, would not be expected to show at the start of a cattle call calendar. Rather, we could work with that judicial staff to have a specific time for indigent defense defendants and the city to respond and handle our cases more effectively. In essence, Mr. Drexel's proposal that he outlined today was the pro was the proposal that Orem asked of the fourth district court, which was rejected by the fourth District Court. We don't ask for preferential treatment. Rather, the city's asking that the courts be open to working with the litigants to find effective and efficient ways to provide access to the courts. And frankly, the city believes that HB 360 6 aids in reaching this goal. And we had asked for a, a positive vote on this hearing. Thank you.

Good morning. And, and thank you for your time, uh, and consideration for this. This is something that's important and it matters. Uh, it matters. Oh, I'm sorry. Where are you from? Yeah, I'm, I'm the South Jordan City prosecutor, and I've served in that capacity for about 17 years. Um, and as I was saying, this matters and it matters to cities. It matters, uh, to victims and actually matters to d to defendants. Uh, I'm gonna echo everything that everyone with the exception of Mr. Drexel said. Um, and, and their points are, are all very, very well taken. And first and foremost, the old system worked. Um, for South Jordan, the way the system was is the cities on the south end of the valley would come to the West Jordan Courthouse to hear their appeals once a month. That was a morning calendar. Uh, uh, the public defenders, the private attorneys, the pro se litigants would come in for a morning calendar and things were hap would be resolved efficiently and quickly. Um, we had very good relationships with the judges, we had very good relationships with the court, and kind of like most things, um, everything was working well until it didn't. And what happened in our case is one day we heard that that calendar would be eliminated, and our case, it would be scattered throughout from two different courts before 30 plus judges. The problem that creates are several. First and foremost, I can't be, while I can work magic, I certainly can't be in two places at the same time. Um, so to accommodate what the court would like to do, we're gonna have to hire more prosecutors. You heard from Mr. Craig, who's our public defender. Um, I don't know how he would be able to manage that caseload. Um, and it's not a matter of just being inconvenient. It's a matter of not being workable at all. You've heard stories about cases that are just dismissed because we don't, the prosecutors can't handle it. Unlike West Valley, I'm the only prosecutor in South Jordan, Riverton, Bluffdale, Herriman, Sandy, are all in similar positions. I I appreciate the court's willingness to talk about this matter and try to find a workable solution. The difficulty that I have is those discussions weren't had in South Jordan. I certainly wasn't contacted before the court decided to make this decision. Um, and so from what I understand, the, one of the reasons that the court decided to make this change was fairness. I'm not exactly sure how fairness can be even considered or a viable alternative when the stakeholders and the people that really matter, the cities, the defendants, the victims weren't contacted at all. So, I'm, I, I'm a little, I'm a little disappointed with how that was handled. Um, one of the things I'm, I'm particularly concerned about is how this is gonna affect our victims. In addition to, again, as the others have stated, having to go from Bluffdale all the way downtown to deal with a case. Um, we have victims advocates in South Jordan, however, we don't have enough to be before 30 plus different judges five days a week. And so really what that means is victims are gonna go without the benefit of our victims' advocates. That's not workable. The public defender contracts don't work for the cities. It's gonna be difficult, if not impossible for us to staff enough prosecutors to get from one court to the next all on the same day. And our victims are gonna suffer. And the same holds true with defendants. Um, prosecutors have a duty to provide procedural fairness to defendants. In fact, we require them to come to court. And just to say that it's a little more convenient, um, for the courts to have their cases spread out the way they want, I think their interest should be considered as well. Again, I, I don't wanna beat a dead horse here, but this matters, uh, it matters to the cities and it matters to the victims, and it matters to the defendants. Any consideration you can give us would be greatly appreciated. And I'd ask, along with all of my other colleagues, move this bill forward. Please. Uh, it matters.

Yeah, I wanna make a motion. I wanna make, I wanna move that we favorably recommend this bill. Alright. A discussion to that motion. Uh, can I speak to it? Yes. Um, gosh, I don't know if I, you know, I'm gonna, I'm, I'm gonna wave. I think we've had some really good testimony. I think this is obvious, and I think there's been a problem for a long time, but I changed my mind.

Th thank you. And, and I'll be brief. I appreciate the chair and the accommodation and hearing, um, all of these, uh, members of the, of the public and, and the real issues that this is causing. And, and I do want to say that I, I have compassion for the court and, uh, a great respect for Michael and the position that he's in and, and having to defend this position. If this was a new proposal, if we were coming here today to say, Hey, I think this would be a good idea to separate out, uh, municipal cases differently, I think that would be a very different debate. Um, and I could see the court's perspective in that. The, the reality is this has been a practice, uh, for the court for over 30 years until they made this change this last year. And that's what's caused the significant, um, shifts and, and problems that you've seen from all of these different city prosecutors and, and the problems that will be to victims and defendants. Uh, if, if this legislature doesn't step in and do something here. Um, the courts mentioned that, uh, they did have a proposal that they brought to the cities. Um, that proposal didn't address the Class A misdemeanor at all. It only addressed did those de novo reviews to the cities. And really it was a pay to play type, um, solution. It's like, well, if the cities are willing to pay a bunch of money to the court, then sure, we'll, we will create a, you know, a special accommodation for you. And, and I think that's why the cities in, in a, in a, in some way felt a little bit offended by, um, that proposal that came from the court. Now that being said, my understanding is there's been some good conversations over the last few days and, and I really do hope that this is something that the court can work out itself. But absent that, I, I think we need to move forward with this legislation because it's, it's squarely within the purview of, of what the legislature should be doing. Uh, another thing that I think is really important to mention is this bill does not require any special calendars for the cities. All it requires is that they are assigned to a single judge and at the closest courthouse to those cities, they could be combined with other types of calendars. And there can be other Juab, uh, economies of scales the courts can find in order to do that. But that doesn't mean that they have to divvy out all of the different cases across, you know, 30 plus judges in different locations, um, to be able to do that. And lastly, I'll just say, Mr. Chair, that, um, though the courts may look at this as really an administrative issue, as you've heard today, this is much broader than an administrative issue. Based on the way that the courts want to administer this, it has serious policy concerns, and that's why it falls within the purview of the legislature. Um, we've heard from cities today saying that they no longer can prosecute these Class A misdemeanors because of the way that the courts want to administer that. That means that there are victims out there that just aren't being heard cases, that, that should be heard, that aren't being heard. Uh, a policy the legislature has already passed to, to give the rights to these cities to prosecute these Class A demeanors. That just can't happen because of the administration of the court. And at the very end of the day, if we care about access to justice, if we care about ensuring that, um, that these cases are, are fairly prosecuted, um, that victims are able to show up and, and get relief, that defendants have a fair ability to get to the courthouse and be heard, this is the solution that we have on the table. And so I urge this committee's support in moving this forward. Thank you.

I'm gonna waive, I think.

Aye, thank you.

Adjourn. Thank you. Senator Bloom. Motion to adjourn.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Um, colleagues, as you may know, um, in municipal uh, proceedings, there are two different types of cases that that city prosecutors deal with. The first type of case would be those that are heard in a justice court. These are typically your infractions, your Class C misdemeanors, class B, class B misdemeanors. Um, for those cases they're heard in a justice court. But if there's an appeal of that court, because the justice courts are not courts of records, uh, those cases will move to the district court and be heard de novo and be heard in front of the judges at the district court. Um, there are also some cities that choose to directly file Class A misdemeanors, and those, those class A misdemeanors are required to be filed in district court. Now, for much of Utah's history appeals from municipal courts, um, were accommodated by the district courts by scheduling those cases in a single court in front of a single judge so that the city prosecutors are usually very short staffed, can come to the court, spend a day or an afternoon and get through all of their cases there. However, uh, just recently this last July in the third district and, um, and shortly before that in the fourth district, the court decided that they were no longer gonna give this accommodation to cities and they were going to just put them in the standard scheduling queue and they would be farmed out to all the different judges, um, to be heard in any of the courthouses that they have. So that means that a city prosecutor could be, uh, required to appear in, you know, three or four different, um, judges in the Masson Courthouse and also a couple different judges in the West Jordan courthouse. And often those are scheduled at the same time. This has caused significant challenges and burdens upon our cities because they just don't have the staff to be able to accommodate that. And the effect of that is often because they can't be in multiple places at the exact same time. The courts, when the case comes up and there's no prote prosecutor to prosecute the court will simply dismiss the case. Meaning that there may be victims out there that never get any retribution, and those that have committed criminal pennies are never, um, receiving any, any punishment. Um, and justice is not being served. So what House Bill 360 6 does is it defines those municipal cases, um, as the criminal cases that are filed in a district court, um, either because of those cases that are those infractions, class C or class B misdemeanors that have to be heard de novo on appeal or the Class A misdemeanors, and then requires the presiding judge of each district to assign, uh, at least one district court judge to hear the city's municipal cases and limit this assignment to no more than one judge for every 500 municipal cases per city. It also requires that those cases be heard in the closest courthouse to the city. So they're not having to, to travel, you know, let's say from Herriman, uh, downtown when they pass the West Jordan courthouse on the side. Now there is a, uh, a, um, an exception in that if the presiding judge finds there's good cause for whatever reason for that municipal case to be heard in a different location, maybe because that's where the defendant is closer to, or that's where the victims are closer to, they can have that accommodation. But generally it's going to be in the courthouse that's closest, um, to, to, um, where that city is located. What this will do, um, is solve this back load issue that we have with all the city prosecutors. It will promote efficiency by not having all of their cases scattered across a bunch of different judges. It will also provide consistency in that the judges will be more familiar with those cities cases and the procedures in those cases because it isn't just they're hearing a city case here and then they're hearing one from the district attorney or from the county attorney, um, in the next case. And then lastly, um, what this should really help is it reduces burdens on defendants, city attorneys, witnesses, um, and, and victims in this case and, and law enforcement that may be required to travel across long distances for those cases to be heard. So with that, uh, Mr. Speaker, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you Mr. Speaker Pro Tem. Uh, I have no questions for the sponsor, but I stand in strong support of this bill. Uh, this was a world I lived in for almost a decade, and it's a lot when you have one or two attorneys per municipality that have to be in multiple times at once. And to make the process easier for everyone involved in the justice court, which is most of our constituents interaction with the judicial system is a great move. So I'd ask you to vote yes on this bill. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Uh, notwithstanding, uh, the good representatives, uh, uh, endorsement of this bill, I do hope you vote for it. Um, it is a good bill and, uh, we'll solve a lot of, uh, great issues in our judicial system. Thank you.

Yeah, and, and I'll explain what I'm gonna do with it. I'm gonna adopt the second sub hopefully, and then we'll circle it and come back this afternoon because the second substitute is fairly different from the original. And so I want to give the body time to take a look at that and I'm happy to explain the details on that. But I wanted to explain what's going on. Uh, what the second substitute does. Uh, the, the underlying bill talks about, uh, uh, judicial case distribution from municipalities to a district court. Um, what the second substitute does is it is the vehicle by which we will address some of the concerns that were raised with regards to the constitutional court. And so it provides for both parties to be able to file into that court. It provides for a subject matter area and it provides for in the event, uh, it also has some addressing of some other concerns related to transfer in business and chancery court, but it also provides that in the event that there is any problem, that the courts find that there is anything unconstitutional with regards to the constitutional court. That it has a fallback court that will immediately go into effect. And the reason that that is there, and, and this is what I wanna make sure the body can, can, can talk about, is, you know, the way that we structured the constitutional court was an accommodation to the concerns that were raised by the bar and by the courts. And most of the claims related to the constitutional court relate to exactly the accommodations that we made in order to have that. And so this says if those accommodations or if the court is ultimately not allowed to move forward, then we're going back to our original idea, but only in the event that that happens. So that is the substance of the substitute. And I'm just moving the substitute right now and then I'm gonna circle so that we can come back probably this evening encircle and, and go through this bill. Thank you.

Yeah, I would move to circle second house bill. Second substitute house bill 360 6.

Thank you Mr. President. Um, this bill, uh, is at its core about two things Utah families

Sure. In the second sub substitute, there was a judge added to the first district that was unnecessary, and this takes that judge out. It also has a little bit of language request from the courts with regards to the chancery court. Uh, that was just technical in nature. Those are the two changes.

Yeah, this is the, uh, this bill started. Uh, it, well, it does a few things. The first thing is on municipal, uh, court, uh, dockets. Uh, this allows for a little more, uh, this allows for a little bit more, um, case management as it goes from the municipal courts into the district courts. Uh, but the other thing that this does is, and the substitute, uh, relates to the new constitutional court. So there's a few things that have happened since that bill was passed and signed into law. If you recall, the constitutional court involved three district judges that were randomly chosen through the state. Now, that was a request at made at the request of our courts and, and many of the people involved. And it requested that we not form a new court, but we do it as this constitutional court made up of district court judges. And so we accommodated that request at the request of the courts. Um, additionally, there were concerns that too many people would file into the court and it would bog down the system. And so originally, uh, this was, uh, additionally an accommodation that it only be the, uh, the legislature or the governor or the, uh, attorney general that could file into that court. There have been legal challenges on those two. And so what this does is it addresses that any party may file. It narrows the scope to constitutional issues as well as issues related to injunctive relief, uh, so that it tries to put a corral a little bit so we don't get, uh, too many cases into it. And then the last thing that it does is it says if this is for any reason, enjoined from being used by the, by the court, then we're just going to create the original idea, which was the constitutional court, which we amended at the request of many of the people concerned about it in the first place. Um, and so with that, I'm open to any questions.

I, I pushed the wrong button up here. There we go. That's all right. I'd like to make a motion to ceremonial unc Uncer uncer.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. I move to Concur with the Senate amendments. Thank

I would, uh, colleagues, this bill has changed quite a bit, um, from the time that we passed it in the house. Um, as you recall this, this bill initially dealt with, um, ensuring that we had, uh, distribution in the court systems for those municipal cases, that they would have their own calendars, uh, where municipal cases could be heard because of the limited staffing that the municipalities had. Um, as we have looked at, um, a previous policy that we passed earlier in the session that dealt with allowing for a three judge review panel in the case, uh, where the state was, um, being challenged in a civil action, um, we decided that there were a few tweaks that would make sense to be, to be made to that. The first tweak is, as you recall, um, the removal to the three judge panel was really at the option of the legislature, the governor or the ag. Um, they would file notice and that would immediately, um, subject to the three judge panel. There's no criteria around what types of cases other than it was in their, um, discretion to remove it to that panel. And that right did not exi extend to the other party in the action. Um, as we have received some feedback, um, on this, we've decided that it makes sense to allow for the other party the ability to do that as well and to provide some criterion for the types of cases that can be removed. And so what the changes you see here in HB 360 6 allow for either party to remove, but they can only do it in, in the cases that you'll see on lines at 9 46. If it's challenging the constitutionality of a state statute or legislation, a provision of the Utah Constitution, an action or inaction of the legislature, an executive order, an administrative rule or inaction by the executive branch. That's the first criteria. The second one is they also have to be seeking a declaratory judgment or injunctive relief. And third, it has to be brought against a state entity or a state official in the state's official capacity. So if you meet those three criteria and either party wants to remove to the three judge panel, uh, they have the ability to do that. The other thing that this bill does is in the event that, uh, that this three judge panel is challenged and the Supreme Court finds that it is constitutional, then it has a trigger function. That trigger function would then create a constitutional court. As you'll recall, this was the original bill that we had worked through. And in working with the courts and other stakeholders, um, we all believe that the better option was to go to the three judge panel. So we have sort of a, a good, better, best, uh, situation that's going on right now. Um, I would say our current judicial system is a good system, right, where district judges are making decisions and those can be appealed then to one judge at an appellate court level and then our seven member Supreme Court. The better option would be to have in the case that someone is challenging a, the constitutionality of a state statute, that you have more eyes looking at it. And that goes to a constitutional court that's made up of three judges that always hear these constitutional issues. Uh, the best option is what we had in the original bill with this change, um, allowing either party to review, which allows for this three judge review panel. And so in the event that the court comes back and says, uh, for whatever reason we believe that the three judge review option is not constitutional, we fall back to the better option of having a constitutional court. So we believe that in, in any respect, um, this, this is a much better system than we have with the status quo. When we have judges that have the ability, um, to put laws that have been duly passed, um, by the people's representatives, it makes sense to have more eyes on that and ensure that while those laws are being on hold before they get to a Supreme Court review, that they really have been thoroughly vetted, um, by multiple judges. And that's exactly what this bill does and I'm happy to answer any questions. Mr. Speaker.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Will the sponsor yield to a question or two?

Thank you Mr. Speaker. So I'm looking here at the fiscal note. Um, are these numbers based on the trigger going into effect?

Thank you Mr. Speaker for the question. Yes, they are

A follow up question that's unrelated. So it looks like here, filing fee on a type of case if this were to go into effect is $1,500. Is there a reason that's more than the regular district court filing fee?

Uh, that's a really great question. Uh, Mr. Speaker, as we looked at this, especially now that we're allowing for any party, um, to re to remove to this three judge panel before we could really limit it because it would be the state, uh, that would have the ability to initiate the review because any party can do that, we felt it appropriate to add an additional fee for re removal to the three judge panel. As we looked at it, the typical filing fee is about $500 in a district court matter. Since we're doing three times the number of judges, it makes sense that we have a $1,500, uh, removal fee. Now, something I think that's important to note Mr. Speaker, is that all of the current provisions around court filing fees stay in effect with this bill. So if a party wants to re, to remove and for whatever reason they're indigent and they cannot afford that, then they can go through the current court process to get a waiver of the fees just like they could for the original filing fee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Uh, colleagues, I do have some concerns about this iteration of the bill. Um, one, I feel like we ended up in a really good place with the constitutional court bill. Um, that was, you know, a lot more supported by the stakeholders involved. Um, I also do have some concerns about the filing fee and, and I say that knowing full well that attorney's fees are outrageous and it's very hypocritical of me to say this, but I think we should not be putting barriers into place when people want to file lawsuits and challenge bills. We have methods in place to cut out the frivolity of certain suits. Uh, but I, I think we shouldn't be placing barriers on them. And I see the $1,500 fi filing fee as one. And so I would urge us not to concur and send this back so we can meet with the Senate to figure it out.

I would. Um, and I appreciate the, the comments from the good, uh, representative from Murray. Um, I I do think it's a little curious. We are giving the right to the other party today to remove to the three judge panel the bill that, that he would say was a good bill and a good policy. This bill allow, uh, the original bill didn't allow for that at all. So to say that I have concerns about having to pay $1,500 to have a right that they didn't have in the original bill, I think he should be jumping for joy that we're extending this right with a small fee, uh, attached to that. And so, um, colleagues, this is a good bill. It's one that has been carefully negotiated that we feel very strongly it puts our state in a much better position than we were at at the beginning of the legislative session. Uh, we're excited for this to move forward and to ensure again that in the case that that our state laws that have been duly passed are being challenged for constitutionally, for constitutionality issues and they're being asked to be put on hold that we have more eyes looking at the situation. That's exactly what this bill does and I'd urge its support.