S.B. 71 Evidence Retention Amendments: transcript

Senate Judiciary, Law Enforcement, and Criminal Justice Committee, Jan 27, 2026

1. Committee chair1:07:25

   evidence, retention amendments. You have the floor, sir, the thing you're here on timing. 'cause we were just gonna skip it and never come back. So

2. Sen. Wayne A. Harper1:07:35

   Thank you. I I had to conclude my committee meeting quickly to come over to You're, You're faster than I am, so Thank you, Mr. Chair. Evidence retention amendments. Two years ago we had, uh, bill, Senate Bill 76 that passed. It was a result of a two year, uh, study of evidence retention disposition that was conducted by law enforcement, defense and prosecution attorneys and other stakeholders as to in what format and what should be retained and for how long. Um, after year and a half of running this, there were a couple tweaks and clarifications that were determined need to be made. Um, it really goes through and does a couple things. And I got chief, uh, ham from the Taylorsville, uh, police Department. He'll fill in a little bit more, but creates a formal process before police can return or destroy. Misdemeanor evidence clarifies, uh, how long fill any evidence and biological evidence are, are kept and then requires court approval before felony evidence can be destroyed if prosecutors deny the request to destroy. So that's kind of the in imposition, high le or purpose of this bill. Three levels. It'll turn over to Chief Kham.

3. Brady Cotham, Taylorsville Police Chief1:08:51

   Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm, uh, Brady Cotham. I'm the police chief of Taylorsville City in Salt Lake County. And I appreciate, uh, Senator Harper and the opportunity to, uh, come before you today. This, this really has been a, a, a good effort and we honestly feel like this is more of a communications bill, where we're all getting on the same page, meaning all the attorneys, police agencies, and we, we are communicating with each other to decide on which, which pieces of evidence really need to. As, as you probably can imagine, we, we hold several thousands of pieces of e evidence each year, and facilities are really difficult, especially in a lot of our counties here in the state of Utah to find facilities that hold evidence. And so this is an opportunity for us to come together, communicate with our attorneys, and, and basically have a, a really clean bill. And the other thing that I really like about this is we've aligned with some of the other stat statutory, uh, that we have and, and other pieces of, of, of Utah code that, uh, you know, they align better. And so I'm, I'm grateful, uh, for the opportunity to have this and I'll, I'll be happy to answer any questions if anybody has any.

4. Committee chair1:10:08

   Alright, thank you. Does that conclude your presentation, Senator? Yes, it does. Alright. Do we have any clarifying questions? Senator Musselman?

5. Sen. Calvin R. Musselman1:10:15

   Um, I, I may misunderstand, but just on storage cost burden. So life of incarceration, keeping evidence, is that, are we tweaking that or is that already in code? Am I missing something? There?

6. Brady Cotham, Taylorsville Police Chief1:10:32

   It is already in code, but the application, so we've, we've just, there's a few words that are tweaked that makes the process go a little bit better. But as to how long it's retained, I don't believe that we've changed that. That's the same, correct. That's the same. Okay.

7. Sen. Calvin R. Musselman1:10:47

   All right. I just wanna make sure I clarified that. Thank you.

8. Committee chair1:10:50

   Thank you. Other clarifying questions? Scene none. Let's go to the public. Um, if you're here, if you'd like to testify for against, um, uh, Senate Bill 71, please show by Ray of raises of hands, including those online. I have one in person, zero online, so we'll allow one public testimony from Mr. Mark Moffitt for two minutes, unless I decide to give him more time or less. If your microphone cuts off Midway, you'll know I gave you less time. So,

9. Mark Moffitt, Utah Defense Lawyers Association1:11:23

   Thank you Mr. Chair, uh, members of the committee. My name's Mark Moffitt. I am a criminal defense lawyer. I'm here on behalf of the Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. Um, I wanna thank Senator Harper for seeking our input with respect to this bill. Um, I was one of the stakeholders that he referenced when, uh, Senate Bill 76 was proposed. Um, and as defense lawyers, we get a little nervous when evidence might be destroyed because through the appeals process and post-conviction process, the evidence that was pertaining to a particular case can be very, very important, sometimes overlooked. And so, um, we were able to, uh, not only speak with, uh, chief Coum, but with other stakeholders relative to the issues that are created by the, um, retention of, of evidence. And we worked out of, uh, what I thought was a very workable compromise. Um, when it came to this particular bill that is being presented today, um, they reached out to us and our concern was primarily focused on the retention of biological evidence. And there was a certain list of offenses for which biological evidence was going to be preserved. Um, and we asked that there be additional, um, offenses that be included on the list, um, and the senator and, and agreed, um, with that. And so we're here to support it. Um, we thank the Senator for seeking our input, um, and we would urge this committee's support. Thank you.

10. Committee chair1:12:47

    Thank you. We do have one, um, person online, uh, who belatedly raised their hand, so I will allow Seth Stewart. Mr. Stewart, I'll allow you to testify for two minutes on Senate Bill 71. Would you please, um, turn on your camera and tell us your name and in which county you reside?

11. Seth Stewart, resident1:13:07

    Sure thing. Yeah. Seth Stewart, uh, live in Utah County. Um, I, I, I take objection to this bill. Uh, for reasons, uh, similar to what were just stated, that, uh, there there should not be a there statute of limitations, so to speak, on remedying, uh, miscarriage of justice and so on, or wrongful conviction. Um, there's, there's really no prerogative that I can see no, no priority or even, uh, dispensation of power to do that within the, uh, state's constitutional framework. Um, you know, the, the right to appeal, for example, is heavily dependent upon, you know, the, the actual facts of the case and so on. Um, and, and just the preservation of that, I, I'm just, I just fail to see a, a compelling reason to, uh, dismantle the ability to review and reassess a case based on the evidence. And, uh, you know, the, the preponderance of evidence standard, for example, this is, uh, you know, it, it, it should be subject to a jury in every case, but, but also if you're, if you're gonna be proving out facts in a court of law, um, you know, dis disposal of that information prematurely is, uh, is, is not, uh, helpful. And I'm just not seeing a, a constitutional justification for you.

12. Committee chair1:14:24

    Thank you. Alright, we're gonna close the public hearing and bring it back to the Committee for action. Anyone so inclined to press the button, make my life a little bit easier.

13. Sen. Ariel Balderree1:14:37

    Senator Baldry, I recommend that we pass out with a favorable recommendation Senate Bill 71 to the full body of the Senate, Senate Senator b Senator Rec, uh, Baldry, recommend Like all those neighborhoods. And then, yeah, throw under me things like We need to mute Senator Brammer.

14. Committee chair1:14:55

    All right. Senator Balderree has made a motion to favorably recommend the bill. Senator Harper. Thank You. Um, would you like to respond to the public hearing and make a summation?

15. Sen. Wayne A. Harper1:15:03

    Yeah. Appreciate that. I appreciate the comments on, on, uh, you know, uh, retaining disposing of, of evidence. Uh, we did a careful review of that. And in most cases, we went longer than what most court cases and what, uh, code had in place in 2024. We lengthened that and we clarified some of the things that we had to deal with. Biological and chemical things. You don't need to go and keep five pounds of, of cocaine. You can keep a sample of it and document it digitally, things like that. That's what we cleaned up. I don't think any constitutional rights had been abrogated, but this one is more of a process and a cleanup after lessons learned for a year and a half.

16. Committee chair1:15:52

    Okay. Any further discussion? Nope. Alright. Um, Senator Balderree, would you like to sum?

17. Sen. Wayne Balderree1:16:01

    Uh, I'll waive. All all in favor

18. Committee chair1:16:04

    of Senator Balder's motion to favorably recommend Senate Bill 71 to the floor of the Senate. Say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Uh, any opposed? Charles, if that passes five to zero, thank you very much. Meet the, I don't think so. Okay.

19. Unknown speaker1:16:27speaker not certain

    'cause bra were just working online. Oh, he's online. Okay. Yeah. So I ought to be back by. Okay. I hope. If not, you can skip me. I'll be back by End. Alright. Thank

20. Committee chair1:16:35

    you. Do we have Senator Plumb here? Senator Vickers? Seeing, not seeing her. I guess we can move on. Um, job. I wish he was here. You better Check your eyes.

House Judiciary Committee, Feb 25, 2026

1. Committee chair (presiding)1:44:40

   in another committee, so we'll move to Senator Harper, SB 71, evidence Retention Amendments. Welcome, Senator.

2. Sen. Wayne A. Harper1:44:49

   Thank you. Good Morning Committee. Appreciate you taking the time to, uh, hear this bill. I have with me, uh, chief Coum Taylorsville City, uh, police chief. Uh, two years ago we ran a bill on evidence, uh, retention, um, with the intent to make sure that we re that, uh, law enforcement retains the evidence only as long as necessary, that we return the evidence back to the rightful owner as soon as practicable. Uh, that's been in place for two years. And the stakeholders came to me and said, Hey, after doing that, we need to make a couple tweaks a little bit on misdemeanor and a little bit on felony, uh, especially dealing with biological, uh, evidence. And all this does is align the process. You can see that there's some code that's stricken out, it's reorganized and clarified in, in, uh, new sections of the code. And I think this is something that will make sure that, that the evidence is taken care of properly. And with that, chief Kam has a couple comments.

3. Brady Cottam, Chief of Police, Taylorsville City1:45:54

   Thank you, Madam Chair and the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to be here and appreciate Senator Harper and his willingness to support us on this. This is, uh, again, as he mentioned, been a long time coming. We're, we're really working hard to deal with evidence. We obviously value and understand the importance of evidence. That's why we, we, we deal with it on a daily basis, but we also are, are tremendously overrun with lots of evidence and, and, and how to manage that and, and storage. And, and I'm certainly not the only police chief that's dealing with this, uh, all over the state of Utah and quite frankly, all over the country. But this, this bill really helps us, and it's a communication bill. I feel like with us, the prosecutor, the defense, I feel like everybody, um, understands, um, the, the timelines that are put in it. And I really think this will, uh, really bring efficiency into our system. So we're, we're grateful for that. And obviously we, we support this bill. And I, I want this to go forward, so thank you.

4. Committee chair (presiding)1:46:55

   Thank you. Does that complete your presentation?

5. Brady Cottam, Chief of Police, Taylorsville City1:46:58

   That concludes the presentation, yes. All right.

6. Committee chair (presiding)1:47:00

   Thank you very much. Back to the committee for discussion or clarifying questions. Seeing no lights, we'll move to the public for comment. Is there anyone here who would like to speak to this bill? Uh, Marise, please come forward and we have one online.

7. Marlesse Jones, Director, Victim Services Commission1:47:25

   Thank you. Madam Chair Marice Jones. I'm the director of the Victim Services Commission. We are a support on this bill. Uh, obviously the collection of evidence and retention of it is important and necessary through the criminal justice system, but it can also be a significant barrier, particularly to victims and witnesses that are involved in the criminal justice system where this action, this crime has been thrust upon them and there can be some really negative consequences of losing some of that evidence that is vital to their day-to-day function. So we appreciate, um, this bill and the effort that's gone into it and the good that it will do and the fine tuning, especially the wisdom in looking at now that we've done it for a couple years, what's working, what needs to be tweaked to improve it. And so we are support. Thank you.

8. Committee chair (presiding)1:48:10

   Thank you. We'll move to online comment, Seth Stewart.

9. Seth Stewart1:48:22

   Alright, thank you very much. Uh, my name is Seth Stewart, representing myself from American Fork. And, uh, my concerns with this bill involve the efficiency argument that's used to dispose of evidence. Um, there's a really great book written by law professor, uh, Suji Thomas. It's called The Missing American Jury. And in that book, one of the really great observations that she makes is that nowhere is efficiency mandated in our state or federal constitutions. It's, it's not a prerogative of government to decide pre preemptively that they may destroy evidence, uh, just on the, on grounds that, uh, they're, they're overburdened or that it's costly or whatever. Um, it's far more costly to hold someone in custody, uh, or, or imprisoned and so on, who was wrongfully accused. And, uh, one of the specific concerns I have with this bill actually is that there is a specific enumeration, I think it's on line 2 57 to 2 78 of specific offenses for which retention standards are, are defined. And, and well, somebody outside of that, uh, might, uh, not qualify for, um, a, a prolonged, uh, evidence retention standard. And so I, I don't see any constitutional justification for that or, or just any, any due process justification. I'm very concerned that that could, could lead to erasure of evidence when in fact somebody could later, later be found, uh, innocent on the basis of exonerating evidence. So I would urge your position to this bill. Thank you.

10. Committee chair (presiding)1:49:59

    Thank you. All right. We'll close public comment and come back to committee for further discussion or action. Representative Clancy

11. Rep. Clancy1:50:09

    Make a motion that we favorably recommend Senate Bill 71 out of this committee and onto the full body of the house. The motion is to favorably recommend SB 71 discussion.

12. Committee chair (presiding)1:50:20

    Would you like to speak to that? I'll waive. Would you like to speak to that sponsor?

13. Sen. Wayne A. Harper1:50:25

    Um, yeah. We've worked a long time on this again, to, to refine it. Again, this is re uh, respecting the rights of the accused and there it really clarifies. I mean, if you have some, a lot of marijuana, do you need to keep the whole 20 pounds or just a sample of it? You know, it clarifies all that type of stuff. So I think it really is good and it goes through and really respects the process, more importantly, the accused and the victim.

14. Committee chair (presiding)1:50:56

    Alright. Thank you. And discussion to the motion. Representative Miller

15. Rep. Miller1:51:07

    Really recommends Senate Bill 71 to the house floor for their consideration.

16. Unknown speaker1:51:12speaker not certain

    It's Out of order. It's out of order. Yes. Oh, we're not even there yet.

17. Committee chair (presiding)1:51:15

    We need, that was already moved by Nancy. Well, I'll take That as a supportive Gesture.

18. Rep. Miller1:51:20

    Yeah, I I will, I will, I will say that I like it so much. I wanna steal substitute motion that I get to do it now. My mistake. I apologize. What I'm trying to say is I like your bill. Thank you. Thank you.

19. Committee chair (presiding)1:51:30

    Thank you representative. Alright, uh, we'll do a roll call vote.

20. Unknown speaker1:51:38speaker not certain

    Representative Abbott Aye. Acton Aye. Ox here. Aye. Gracious Hawkins? Yes. Lube? Yes. Manga. Aye. Millard? Yes. Thompson? Yes. Clancy? Yes. Libe.

21. Committee chair (presiding)1:51:55

    Aye. All right. That passes unanimously.

22. Vice Chair Clancy (presiding)1:52:12

    All righty. So Representative Lisonbee as the floor sponsor to the legislation, she can begin the presentation for

Senate floor, Feb 13, 2026

1. Sen. Wayne A. Harper1:02:16

   and had a two year long discussion of evidence re retention disposition, which resulted in Senate Bill 76 from the 2024 session. Um, after a year and a half of that being in place, there's a couple of tweaks that all the parties came together and said they needed to update some code section and they wanted to go through and improve the process and can improve the communications. They added, uh, biological evidence of, uh, retention for additional items, uh, reorganized things and then added some stuff that everybody said would make the retention disposition of evidence more clear and accelerated for returning that to the, uh, parties with whom it was taken.

2. President Adams (presiding)1:03:01

   Thank you Senator for the presentation. See no discussion to your bill. I'm gonna go to you for a motion.

3. Unknown speaker1:03:08speaker not certain

   Thank you. Move that Senate Bill 71, be read for third time. Thank

4. President Adams (presiding)1:03:12

   You. The question is, shall Senate bill 71 be read a third time quel vote.

5. Senate clerk (roll call)1:03:15

   Senator Vickers Baldry Aye. B Lein Aye. Brammer Aye. Bus Cullimore Esca Fillmore Grover Harper Aye. Kinins Aye. Ipson Aye. Johnson. Aye. K. Juab McKay Mikel Milner Musselman Owens Pitcher Plum Rebe Sandal Stevenson Stratton Aye. Bickers Weiler Aye. Wilson Aye. Winterton Aye. President Adams Aye. Senate

6. President Adams (presiding)1:04:15

   Bill 71 having received 21 yay votes, zero nay votes. Eight being absent shall be read A third time

Senate floor, Feb 17, 2026

1. Sen. Wayne A. Harper20:38

   after a lengthy two year study on uh, how we go through and retain, dispose of and return evidence, uh, to the rightful owners. After, uh, nearly two years of doing that, there are some tweaks that need to be done on, on the retention disposition of, uh, felony, uh, evidence. This bill is that technical clarification worked on and agreed to by all the stakeholders.

2. Presiding officer21:02

   Thank you, Senator. Again. We're third reading. See no discussion to you for a motion.

3. Sen. Wayne A. Harper21:07

   Thank you'd move that Senate Bill 71 Pass. Thank you. And

4. Presiding officer (roll call)21:11

   the question is, shall Senate bill 71 pass Roll call Vote. Senator Vickers Baldy Aye. Lewin Aye. Bramer bus Comore Aye. As Camilla Fillmore Grover. Grover Aye. Harper Aye. Kinins Aye. Ipson Aye. Johnson Qua McKay Aye. Mikel Aye. Milner Musselman Owens pitcher Aye. Plum Rebi Sandal Stevenson Stratton Vicars Weiler Aye. Wilson Aye. Winterton President Adams Aye.

5. Presiding officer22:01

   Senate bill 71 Having received 23 Senate bill 71 having received 24 yay votes, zero na votes, five being absent passes, this body will be sent to the house for their consideration. Senator Harper.

6. Sen. Wayne A. Harper22:16

   Thank you. Motion to circle second substitute Senate bill 1 51 Public Safety funding amendments.

7. Presiding officer22:22

   Thank you. We have a motion to circle. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Vote. Motion passes.

8. Presiding officer22:28

   The bill is Uncircled. Senator Harper,

9. Sen. Wayne A. Harper22:30

   Thank you. And move to deleting title embodies second substitute Senate Bill 1 51 and replace with third substitute Senate Bill 1 51. Speak to that amendment that,

House floor, Feb 26, 2026