Utah’s criminal justice system is still wrestling with some fundamental questions: how do we hold people accountable without fueling over-criminalization, keep our prison population trending in the right direction, and balance victims’ rights with due process? During the 2026 general session, lawmakers tackled everything from victim privacy and juvenile justice to kratom regulation, capital punishment procedures, and police transparency.
Here are a handful of the most consequential criminal justice bills from this session—some wins, some losses. Not every outcome was ideal, but in each case, Libertas was fighting for a more just and pro-liberty result.
✅ Protecting Victim Privacy Without Gutting Due Process
Smartphones and social media have fundamentally changed how criminal investigations operate, and prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges have spent years arguing where the lines should be regarding sensitive digital material. That tension came to a head this session with SB 290, which attempts to create greater protections for victims’ and witnesses’ private data.
SB 290 (Balderree) enacts a new statutory framework governing “nonpublic victim or witness data” in criminal proceedings. The final version distinguishes “electronic evidence” that must automatically be disclosed under the Utah Rules of Criminal Procedure from other sensitive digital material, establishes a rebuttable presumption against disclosing intimate images, and encourages agencies to use secure virtual review rooms so defense counsel can access sensitive materials without broad dissemination.
Our Take:
Initially, we had significant concerns—another layer of statutory complexity in an already-bloated criminal code, and real risks to defendants’ ability to access crucial discovery materials. After intensive negotiations alongside the Utah Defense Attorneys Association and the Attorney General’s Office, we stood down from opposition once the bill evolved into a framework that preserves core discovery obligations while adding meaningful victim privacy protections. We’re cautiously optimistic that the new structure will push agencies toward more thorough investigations and, in practice, result in more total evidence being preserved and disclosed, not less.
❌ Kratom: From Near-Ban to Heavy Regulation
Kratom has become a flashpoint in Utah’s ongoing debates over personal freedom and public health. Advocates see it as a harm-reduction tool and a legitimate alternative to more dangerous substances; critics call it “gas station heroin.” Whatever your view, the original SB 45 took the most extreme possible approach: a full repeal of the Kratom Consumer Protection Act and a Schedule I classification for kratom alkaloids. That was effectively a near-total prohibition.
SB 45 (McKell/Hall) passed in significantly amended form. Rather than an outright ban, the final bill amends the existing Kratom Regulation Act, requires processors and retailers to register with the Department of Agriculture and Food, restricts sales to tobacco specialty shops, and bans non-“pure leaf” products and certain concentrated metabolites.
Our Take:
This is a mitigated loss. We pushed hard against the original near-ban, and the final version is meaningfully better. It preserves a regulatory framework rather than defaulting to prohibition. But it still trades adult autonomy for paternalistic controls, and we’ll keep pushing for approaches that treat consumers as capable of making their own choices.
❌ Speeding Up the Death Penalty at the Expense of Due Process
Capital punishment is one of the most extreme assertions of state power, and Utah’s procedures for death-penalty cases should demand the highest possible safeguards. HB 495 is a sweeping restructuring of capital felony procedures, and while parts of it improve the mechanics in these cases, its overall thrust is concerning.
HB 495 (Pierucci) mandates appointment of appellate and post-conviction counsel for death row defendants, clarifies sentencing and competency procedures, and increases fee caps for capital defense attorneys. At the same time, the bill was explicitly designed to streamline appeals and accelerate the path to execution.
Our Take:
We opposed HB 495. Certain provisions are genuine improvements, but the bill’s overarching goal is to accelerate a system where mistakes are permanent and irreversible, and where the power imbalance is most acute. In capital cases, tightening procedural timelines chooses finality over accuracy.
✅ Keeping Kids in Class, Not Court
Utah has made real progress over the past decade in reducing the school-to-prison pipeline, but the code is always at risk of incremental backsliding. Both HB 188 and HB 48 started this session with provisions that raised serious alarms for juvenile defenders and for Libertas alike.
HB 188 (Peck) recodifies school-offense notification requirements and establishes a third-strike threshold before a minor can be mandatorily referred to court for drug possession. HB 48 (Lisonbee) adjusts how serious juvenile cases are handled, including which youth may be placed in adult facilities, with data-reporting requirements tied to recidivism outcomes.
Our Take:
Both bills started as potential setbacks and ended as workable outcomes so we’re counting them both as wins. Through sustained engagement with bill sponsors and juvenile defense attorneys, we secured meaningful amendments, including preserving nonjudicial options for kids who make mistakes. We withdrew opposition to both.
✅ Right-Sizing Traffic and Insurance Penalties
One of the quieter places where over-criminalization hides is in traffic and vehicle offenses. Treating everyday driving mistakes as criminal offenses can saddle people with criminal records for conduct that poses little to no public safety risk. It doesn’t make headlines, but matters enormously for the people it affects.
Although HB 24 (Wilcox) increases the penalty for failing to carry evidence of insurance, it downgrades multiple offenses from a class C misdemeanor to an infraction, including school zone speeding and careless driving.
Our Take:
We supported HB 24 as a net positive. Decriminalizing lower-tier traffic infractions is exactly the kind of incremental, common-sense reform we’ve been advocating for years. Utah’s code shouldn’t leave people with criminal records for conduct that doesn’t warrant one.
How the Session Stacked Up
The 2026 legislative session was a mixed bag for criminal justice reform. We mitigated potential harm in juvenile justice, helped forge a workable compromise on victim privacy, and moved the needle on penalty rationalization. We’ll take those wins.
The losses are real too, but we’re heading into the interim focused on monitoring the practical implementation of these and other reforms, while developing proactive solutions to Utah’s prison overcrowding challenge for 2027. There’s always more to do.
