Bindover Standard Does Not Allow Court to Second-Guess Prosecutor Evidence

Utah’s bindover standard for probable cause, does not allow courts to second-guess the prosecution’s evidence by weighing it against the totality of evidence to draw a reasonable inference.

State v. Jones, 2016 UT 4, 365 P.3d 1212.

    The Utah Supreme Court reaffirmed that probable cause for arrest is the standard used to determine whether bindover is appropriate based on evidence provided by the prosecutor for allegations of a crime. In analyzing these cases, the court suggests the question to ask is “whether any officer, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, could reasonably conclude that a crime was committed and that the defendant committed it.”

   A magistrate and the appellate court both made inferences on their decision based on the totality of evidence, not taking into account the limited role that courts must take in applying the probable cause standard in viewing the evidence in the most favorable light of prosecutors.  The court further noites that “[t]he judicial role at this stage, however, is not to prejudge the likely outcome of trial. It is simply to ask whether there is a non-speculative basis in the evidence to sustain a reasonable basis for an arrest on the crime in question.”

https://www.utcourts.gov/opinions/supopin/State%20v.%20Jones20160111.pdf

Feds Protected By Qualified Immunity In Arrest of State Cops

Qualified immunity is granted in a civil rights lawsuit to federal agents who arrested every state cop at the scene of a fake drug raid, to then later sort out which suspects stole the "bait" items.

 

Callahan v. Unified Gov't of Wyandotte Cty./Kan. City, 2015 BL 376394, 10th Cir., No. 14-3717, 11/16/15

    The U.S Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit granted qualified immunity to the federal officers even though the arrests were made with blanket suspicion, not specific individual suspicion, that some of the group had stolen items.

    The plaintiffs cited Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85 (1979), where the U.S. Supreme Court held that a warrant to search a public bar for evidence of drug deals did not allow the officers to search all of the patrons only because of their "mere propinquity" to those already suspected. Ybarra requires particularized probable cause.

    To differentiate from Ybarra, the court looked to Maryland v. Pringle, 540 U.S. 366 (U.S. 2003), which upheld the detention and search of everyone in a car (not just the driver) on the reasonable conclusion that everyone in the small space was likely involved in a common criminal enterprise.

   However, the court indicated that Pringle raises more questions than it answered, and that its impact on the Ybarra analysis open for debate. Because of this ambiguity, the court concluded that the arresting officers had not violated the Ybarra standard saying, "[w]e cannot ask officers to make a legal determination-that law professors probably could not agree upon-without any guidance from the courts and then hold them liable for guessing incorrectly."

http://www.bloomberglaw.com/public/desktop/document/Callahan_v_Unified_Govt_of_Wyandotte_CtyKan_City_No_143171_2015_B?1450892372