Post-conviction relief has become a common route to getting rights violations, new evidence, and constitutional law issues resolved after initial appeals have already failed to get you the relief you need. These claims can often involve after-discovered evidence and other specific grounds listed in statutes, potentially getting you a new trial months or even years after your conviction was finalized.
Utah has post-conviction relief challenges that can be filed under the Post-Conviction Remedies Act (PCRA). Generally, there needs to be some serious constitutional or fairness issue at hand, such as the fact that the conviction was illegal, new evidence calls the conviction into question, new DNA evidence was found, or after-discovered evidence points to the defendant’s actual innocence. There are also limited options for federal post-conviction relief, usually in the form of a habeus corpus petition, though these options have been limited over the years under a law called AEDPA.
For help with your criminal case, call the Utah criminal defense lawyers at Overson Law today at (801) 758-2287.
What is Post-Conviction (PCRA) Relief in Utah?
In most criminal cases, people get an initial appeal “as of right” – meaning that they automatically get to file this if they have grounds for it. However, those appeals usually need to be filed quickly after the initial loss in court, and they can only be based on specific legal issues in the case, such as improper rulings on evidence. If you lost that appeal and perhaps lost again at the Utah Supreme Court (or if the Supreme Court denied your second appeal), then there are no more routes for “direct” appeals, and you instead need to turn to “collateral” appeals.
Post-conviction relief is the main focus of these “collateral” appeals, and the petitions you file are often known casually as “PCRAs” or “PCRA petitions” for the Post-Conviction Remedies Act, Utah Code Title 78, Chapter 9.
PCRAs are usually based on a big issue, not just technicalities with a judge’s ruling. With these claims, you usually have to say that the entire process of holding a criminal trial to determine guilt or innocence was undermined by a serious defect or rights violation. As such, these claims are commonly denied because most cases simply do not involve issues this big and serious – but those that do can entitle the defendant to a new trial.
Grounds for PCRA Appeals in Utah
Under the PCRA, there are many grounds listed for possible appeals. We can break them down into various issues, but we will only discuss some of the most common issues:
Constitutional Violations
If you were convicted in violation of a constitutional rule or right, then your conviction cannot stand. Our South Jordan, UT criminal defense lawyers can file PCRA petitions based on illegal laws or illegal trial practices involving witnesses, jury formation, and other constitutional law issues.
One of the most common issues that leads to post-conviction relief petitions is a violation of the rule in Brady v. Maryland (1963). In a criminal case, the defendant usually gets most of the evidence from the prosecution, which is required to turn over this evidence in a process called “discovery.” When the prosecution turns over discovery evidence, they will usually have a lot of evidence that proves the defendant’s guilt (“inculpatory evidence”), but if they have any evidence that proves the defendant’s innocence (“exculpatory evidence”), Brady requires them to turn this over as well, or else violate the 14th Amendment.
Many defendants only learn after their conviction that the prosecution had another confession to the crime, that they had a contradictory forensic test, or that a witness was secretly paid for their testimony – all of which might have been controlling or important in helping the defendant prove their innocence. Many cases are based on this prosecutorial misconduct involving withholding of exculpatory evidence in their (or the police’s) control.
Sentencing Issues
If the sentence was actually unconstitutional, it cannot stand, and a PCRA can be filed.
After-Discovered Evidence
Newly discovered evidence can be brought to light after not being available during the initial trial. If the police simply did not talk to all the right witnesses, it might take months or years to track them down and do what the police should have done before. In many cases, new evidence comes to light that shows the defendant could not have committed the crime, allowing a PCRA to be filed.
Often, you have to show that the evidence in question could not have been discovered at the time. Additionally, it needs to be material evidence and not just a summary or other evidence or evidence that might have just gone to undermining a witness’ testimony. It also needs to be quite strong in proving innocence and undermining the conviction.
New Science
Often, the after-discovered evidence will be new scientific findings, DNA evidence, or something similar. For example, when DNA first became popular in criminal cases, prisoners realized that the evidence in their case might never have been tested, and new DNA testing of old evidence helped exonerate many wrongly convicted defendants.
New developments in fire science, “shaken-baby syndrome,” witness-identification science, and other areas of study are often solid grounds for challenging older convictions with post-conviction collateral appeals.
Ineffective Assistance of Counsel
We all have a right to have a lawyer represent us under the U.S. Constitution and the Utah Constitution. If that representation is so bad that it is basically equivalent to not having a lawyer, then that essentially counts the same as a violation of that constitutional right. As such, you can sometimes get your case overturned on a claim that you had “ineffective assistance of counsel” in your initial trial.
Federal Post-Conviction through Habeus Petitions
For violations of federal law (not state law), you can sometimes file a habeus corpus petition in federal court. However, the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) greatly limits the situations where this is available, and recent Supreme Court rulings have also reduced the effectiveness and availability of these petitions. This often means that Utah’s state PCRAs are likely to be the best route to post-conviction relief, and federal habeus petitions are more of a last resort.
Call Our Utah Criminal Defense Lawyers Today
For a free review of your case, call our Park City, UT criminal defense lawyers at Overson Law at (801) 758-2287.
