The newest member of the Utah State Senate, Stuart Adams (R – Layton, District 22) is already starting to get his chops wet with SB 58, Transportation Expense for Defendants.
The bill itself would mandate that convicted defendants in criminal cases have to pay for any sort of transportation expenses incurred by the government if the defendant was charged and convicted of a misdemeanor. Currently the court only has the option to impose a transportation fee if it so chooses, with the passage of this bill, it would have to choose not to charge.
This is a good bill. We are not talking about high profile felonies where a defendant may not be able to get a fair trial in his community, no we are talking about people trying to move their case from court to court in an attempt to avoid paying speeding tickets.
I should point out that the fees associated with transportation are relatively low and that this practice of court hopping is probably not all that common of an occurrence. This is just a good common sense law that punishes those who try to draw out the conviction process to avoid penalties they rightly deserve. I am honestly surprised to hear that this policy was not already in place.
