To track the status of this bill, find it on our Legislation Tracker. Click here to contact the sponsor of the bill to share your thoughts, or click here to email your Senator and Representative about it.
Utah lawmakers are considering House Bill 495, a bill that overhauls how the state handles death penalty cases from sentencing through execution. The bill makes some real improvements, including clearer rules for appeals, better notice of postconviction options, and a more formal process to identify people with intellectual disabilities who cannot be sentenced to death.
However, HB 495 also creates new rules for deciding whether someone is mentally competent to be executed that push the system toward speed over accuracy. The bill treats any competency motion filed within 21 days of an execution as “untimely” unless defense counsel has already secured a fresh expert examination, a sworn affidavit finding the person incompetent, and an explanation for the late filing. It sharply limits repeat petitions by demanding proof of a substantial change in mental condition plus a new expert affidavit based on previously unknown facts, and it compresses the time between a final competency ruling and execution to as little as 15 days while tightly restricting when courts can pause an execution.
That is why Libertas opposes HB 495 by Rep. Candice Pierucci.
The U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that executing someone who does not rationally understand that they are being put to death as punishment for murder is unconstitutional, yet HB 495’s tight deadlines, high evidentiary thresholds, and constrained stay authority make it harder to fully and fairly evaluate that question when it matters most.
Utah has already addressed many of the historic problems cited by the bill’s sponsor by strengthening Rule 8 of the Rules of Criminal Procedure, which now requires multiple, specially qualified defense attorneys with specific capital‑case experience and training—reforms adopted since the 1980s‑era cases where people have remained on death row for 30‑plus years.
Libertas Institute opposes HB 495 because, even as Utah has modernized capital defense and this bill fixes certain procedural issues, it increases the risk that the state will carry out executions of people whom the Constitution protects—a result that should concern Utahns regardless of where they stand on the death penalty itself.
