The drug dealer admitted he had never “been willing to make true amends.”
But while facing two rounds of drug and weapons charges in 2021, he wrote to 3rd District Judge Randall Skanchy: “I have done a lot of despicable things in my life and it’s upon the realization of the hurt I’ve caused myself and others that I am seeking help to become a functioning human being.”
The Salt Lake County man, then 53, pleaded guilty to two counts of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, and one count of possession of a dangerous weapon.
In a presentencing report, his defense attorney, prosecutors and the state’s Adult Pardons & Probation division all recommended he be put on probation — in part so he could get treatment for his drug addiction.
Skanchy instead sentenced him to one-to-15 years in prison, the standard for a second-degree felony. And Skanchy didn’t allow or invite him to say anything first — an omission that recently split the Utah Supreme Court.
The chance for a defendant to speak before being sentenced — what the law calls allocution — is, federal appeals judges in Denver wrote in a 2023 opinion, “one of the oldest and most important principles in our legal system.”
So did the dealer deserve a new sentencing hearing? The Utah Court of Appeals said yes. But earlier this month, in a 3-2 ruling, the Utah Supreme Court said no.
The reason: Utah’s laws sharply limit the influence that state judges actually have on the sentences criminals serve.
An ‘obvious’ error
When investigators searched the dealer’s Salt Lake County apartment in March 2020, according to the seven charges initially filed against him, they found a shrink-wrapped brick that later tested positive for methamphetamine. They also found other drugs and three guns, the charging documents said.
In December 2020, while that case was pending and he was out on bail, investigators went back to the apartment — where they found methamphetamine and heroin, split among multiple small baggies, along with digital scales and packing material. Those items, according to the court document detailing four more charges, indicated he “was repackaging larger quantities of narcotics for distribution.”
Ultimately, the two sets of charges were combined and prosecutors offered him a deal. He pleaded guilty to two second-degree felonies and one third-degree felony. The Salt Lake Tribune is not naming the dealer because it generally does not cover individual cases of this level of crime.
Before sentencing, the dealer “wrote a couple of letters to the Court that were very insightful about his desire to participate in treatment” — something his previous prison stints didn’t allow him to do, his lawyers pointed out and the Utah Court of Appeals noted.
But Skanchy said the “large amounts” of seized methamphetamine, guns and money made the man “not the sort of person I typically send to a therapeutic community without some compelling reason,” court records show. The judge asked for the presentencing report.
At the sentencing, prosecutors and defense lawyers spoke — but Skanchy never invited the dealer to speak, and the man didn’t ask to speak.
That was an “obvious” error and a “harmful” one, the Utah Court of Appeals ruled, citing federal appeals court cases as precedent. The state appeals court vacated the sentencing and ordered a do-over.
Then the state Supreme Court decided to review that ruling.
Why do defendants get to speak?
Federal judges have “wide discretion” in sentencing, and “can vary the duration of a sentence by as little as one month,” Associate Chief Justice John A. Pearce wrote for the majority of the justices.
The Court of Appeals had been wrong to depend on federal appeals cases because Utah’s state sentencing laws are so different, he explained.
Utah judges make only two choices: Between ordering probation or incarceration; and then whether a defendant convicted on multiple counts will serve the multiple sentences all at the same time (concurrent) or one after another (consecutive).
The Utah Board of Pardons decides how long inmates are actually held.
“Because Utah judges are confined to largely binary decisions at sentencing, the odds that allocution will affect a given sentence are relatively small,” Pearce wrote. “We are hard-pressed to conclude that a spoken statement of contrition, however emotional, would have changed the court’s mind.”
Justices Paige Petersen and Jill M. Pohlman sided with Pearce.
But allowing a criminal to speak to a judge before sentencing has more benefits than the possible “mitigation” of a prison term that Pearce mentioned, Justice Diana Hagen wrote in her dissent.
“An allocution statement can serve as an important therapeutic benefit for the defendant,” Hagen wrote, and can “promote healing and closure for victims.”
Also, Hagen wrote, allocution is “an important element of procedural fairness” and “preserves the perceived equity of the sentencing process.”
Chief Justice Matthew B. Durrant signed onto Hagen’s opinion. Together, they suggested changing Utah court rules to create a way for defendants to quickly get a new sentencing hearing when they aren’t given the chance to speak at their first.
The state Supreme Court sent the case back to the appeals court on another issue, to determine whether Skanchy abused his discretion in sentencing the dealer to prison rather than following the recommendation for probation.
In the meantime, however, the dealer, now 58, has already been released by Utah Board of Pardons on these convictions. According to the Utah Department of Corrections, he’s currently out on parole again, after a newer assault conviction.