Utah appeals court upholds man’s crack dealing conviction

Judge William A. Thorne Jr. recently upheld the conviction of a man accused to selling crack to an undercover officer.

The man was convicted of distributing or arranging to distribute a controlled substance, which is a felony. The man appealed his conviction due to various evidentiary problems in the case.

Central to the man’s appeal was the reliability of the undercover detective’s testimony. He alleged that the testimony was so unreliable that it couldn’t constitute sufficient evidence to sustain his conviction.

Specifically, the man alleged that there were multiple factors undermining the detective’s identification of him as the drug dealer, including:

  1. The short duration of the alleged transaction
  2. Poor lighting conditions
  3. The distracting presence of another drug dealer that the detective knew
  4. The different race of the detective

This last factor was important because courts have recognized that cross-racial identifications tend to be less accurate than same-race witness identifications.

Judge Thorne ultimately rejected the man’s claims on appeal. The threshold for challenging a trial court’s factual findings is rather high, and the judge noted that the man did not meet this high evidentiary burden.

Also, the major factor that harmed the man’s case appeared to be the fact that he was sharing a hotel room with the man who arranged the drug transaction with the undercover detective and that he was arrested a short time after the detective identified him to cops waiting in the area.

Judge Thorne affirmed the man’s conviction and Judges Gregory K. Orme and Michelle M. Christiansen concurred.


The Salt Lake City criminal defense team at Greg Smith & Associates handles drug defense throughout Utah. If you or a loved one is under investigation or has been charged with drug crime, call us at 801-651-1512 or contact us online.

Call Now

Disclaimer

The information you obtain at this site is not, nor is it intended to be, legal advice. You should consult an attorney for advice regarding your individual situation. We invite you to contact us and welcome your calls, letters and electronic mail. Contacting us does not create an attorney-client relationship. Please do not send any confidential information to us until such time as an attorney-client relationship has been established.

The user and reader of this information should beware because although we strive to keep the information timely and accurate, there will often be a delay between official publication of the materials and their appearance in or modification of this system, and every case must be looked at individually. Thus, we make no express or implied guarantees that the information on this site is correct, and it should not be relied upon. The Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations remain the official sources for regulatory information published by the Department of Labor, and before you do anything, you should consult an attorney, who can review the specifics of your matter. We will make every effort to correct errors brought to our attention, but laws and regulations are constantly changing, and we may at times even misinterpret them.