traffic jury trial utah civil-rights
Can prosecutors and/or judges be sued for dereliction of duty when they change charges to avoid a jury trial?
<p>Scenario (Utah, USA): A defendant is arraigned at a pre-trial hearing. Charges include driving without insurance and driving with an expired license.
State law declares that those who do these things are guilty of misdemeanors in each case, and prescribes a minimum penalty for each if found guilty.</p>
<p>The defendant expresses a desire for a trial, and seeing that these are criminal charges, he exercises his State and Federal Constitutional right to a jury trial to respond to those charges.</p>
<p>The judge immediately prevaricates and solicits input from the prosecutor, who promptly adjusts the charges to &quot;infractions&quot;. The judge then repeatedly affirms that a jury trial is not an option because no criminal charges are being made, despite criminal charges having been the cause of the arraignment.</p>
<p>The judge attempts to coerce either a bench trial or a plea deal, repeatedly saying that since no criminal charges are being made, no jury trial can be arranged.</p>
<p>The State Constitution also says that &quot;All laws of a general nature shall have uniform operation&quot;.</p>
<p>In the same jurisdiction, people arraigned with identical initial charges and with comparable evidences against them have been charged as misdemeanors, pled guilty or issued a plea in abeyance, and were convicted by a bench trial with no further findings beyond police reports or pulling their traffic records, and were left with a criminal record on account of the conviction, and required to pay a commensurate fine and being required to conform to additional sentencing.</p>
<p>Can the prosecutor and/or the judge be sued for dereliction of duty, and for non-uniform application of the law?
Can the outcome of a bench trial be appealed on grounds that the judge did not inform the defendant of his rights or that his rights were taken away by unwarranted modification of the charges?</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Can the prosecutor and/or the judge be sued for dereliction of duty,
and for non-uniform application of the law?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>No.</p>
<p>Judges and prosecutors have absolute immunity from civil liability for their actions in the course of their duties in connection with the court process.</p>
<p>Prosecutors have effectively absolute discretion in their charging decisions and in their decisions to reduce the charges sought against a defendant (prior to jeopardy attaching when a jury is sworn in).</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Can the outcome of a bench trial be appealed on grounds that the judge
did not inform the defendant of his rights</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yes.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>or that his rights were taken away by unwarranted modification of the
charges?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>No.</p>
<p>Incidentally, there is no federal constitutional right to a jury trial in a case where six months or less of incarceration is sought as a penalty, and there is no federal constitutional right to counsel unless incarceration is a possible penalty.</p>
<p>The Utah State Constitution distinguishes between criminal matters and non-criminal matters in several respects mostly found in the state's bill of Rights (<a href="https://le.utah.gov/xcode/UC_1800010118000101.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Article I of the State Constitution</a>) in Sections 8, 10, 12, 13, and 19.</p>
<p>But, it is fundamentally the right of the state through its prosecutors to decide what charges to press against someone, and they are well within their rights to change their minds. Often, this will be in your favor because reducing an offense to a civil infraction rather than a misdemeanor will have far fewer collateral consequences related to having a criminal record.</p>
