SALT LAKE CITY — A judge rejected a state prosecutor's request to elaborate on his reasons for dropping criminal charges against former Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff.
Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings sought to include additional facts about speedy trial and evidentiary rules violations, arguing his own motion to dismiss the case was incomplete.
But 3rd District Judge Elizabeth Hruby-Mills found no basis to change the reasoning for dismissing the charges against Shurtleff or to reconsider her ruling.
"(Rawlings) acknowledges 'multiple other legitimate reasons' to dismiss this action, and otherwise identifies no error with respect to the order of dismissal," the judge wrote.
Shurtleff, a former three-term Republican attorney general, faced five felonies — three counts of accepting gifts, and one each of bribery to dismiss a criminal proceeding and obstruction of justice — and two misdemeanors accusing him of obstructing justice and official misconduct.
Rawlings cited several reasons for dropping the case in July, including a U.S. Supreme Court ruling making it more difficult to prosecute public officials for bribery, the inability to obtain key evidence from a federal investigation and concerns over whether Shurtleff coud get a fair trial.
Rawlings tried but wasn't able to get key evidence he believed the Department of Justice and the FBI were withholding from their investigation of Shurtleff and his successor John Swallow.
Swallow faces a dozen public corruption charges in a separate case and is scheduled for trial early next year.
Hruby-Mills dismissed the Shurtleff case at the end of July, and Rawlings filed a motion to amend the ruling a month later.
Specifically, Rawlings sought to point out that prosecutors in the Swallow case gave him allegedly tainted evidence — private emails between Swallow and his former defense attorney — that they subsequently told him not to look at. Rawlings argued that he and Shurtleff were entitled to review that information to prepare for trial.
The problems with trying to obtain evidence hindered Shurtleff's right to a speedy trial, Rawlings argued.
Email: romboy@deseretnews.com
Twitter: dennisromboy