The Utah Court of Appeals has ruled prosecutors waited too long to appeal a judge's dismissal of four charges against a southern Utah man in a Burr Trail vandalism case.
Grant S. Johnson, who lived in an environmental enclave near Boulder, Garfield County, at the dirt road's northern end, had been charged with damaging four bulldozers on Dec. 2, 1988.The equipment was to have been used on a controversial grading proj-ect on the 66-mile-long scenic trail.
However, a 6th Circuit Court judge dismissed the charges at preliminary hearing, citing insufficient evidence.
The Garfield County prosecutors attempted to reopen the preliminary hearing to present additional evidence, but the judge said the new evidence was essentially the same as that presented at the first hearing.
Prosecutors appealed the dismissals to the appellate court, but a three-judge panel refused to consider the matter because the appeal had not been filed within the required 10-day period.
The judges also refused to consider appeals by both prosecutors and Johnson on suppression-of-evidence questions raised on separate drug-related charges.
Prosecutors had said drugs and paraphernalia were found in a search of Johnson's home during the vandalism investigation.