State v. McDaniel
State v. Garcia, 2025 UT App 120 (Tenney, J.)
Criminal
The Utah Court of Appeals held:
- The district court did not err in denying Defendant’s motion for a directed verdict because the victim’s testimony was not inherently improbable.
- Even assuming the trial court should have excluded State Expert’s testimony, any error was harmless.
- Trial counsel did not perform deficiently when he advised Defendant to appear in jail clothes at trial, and commented on those jail clothes to the jury, because counsel’s choice to use Defendant’s criminal past was conscious and deliberate.
- The district court did not err in giving an “indecent liberties” instruction that was not supported by the law in effect at the time of the alleged criminal conduct because any error was harmless.