The Appellate Group

State v. Underwood

State v. Underwood, 2026 UT App 76 (Christiansen Forster, J.)

Criminal Law

The Utah Court of Appeals held:

(1) Counsel was not ineffective by failing to argue residual hearsay exception as basis to admit statements to police where counsel substantively argued the exception, and the exception was unlikely to apply.
(2) The district court did not plainly err by failing to disregard victims’ testimony as inherently improbable and thus insufficient to support sexual abuse convictions where testimony did not contain material inconsistencies.

Practice tip:

Trial counsel does not perform deficiently by failing to cite a particular rule when the substance of the argument has been considered and rejected.

Read the full court opinion