State v. Hembree
State v. Hembree, 2025 UT App 166 (Harris, J.)
Criminal
The Utah Court of Appeals held:
- The district court did not err in denying Defendant’s motion to reinstate the time to file his direct appeal because the court’s factual findings were supported by the record.
- The Court did not reach the merits of Defendant’s unpreserved issue—that State v. Rippey represents a landscape shift resulting in a deprivation of his right to appeal his convictions—because exceptional circumstances for doing so do not exist here (1) where the relevant issues should be decided in the first instance by the district court after full briefing and (2) where those issues can still be timely brought to the attention of that court.
- Practice tip: Nothing in rule 4(f) forbids the filing of multiple Manning motions because multiple grounds may exist upon which such motions may be filed, and a defendant could conceivably discover, at different times, different reasons for the deprivation of the defendant’s appellate rights.