This case asks whether the trial record, without more, demonstrates that a defendant’s constitutional right to adequate legal representation has been violated, where the record reveals that the defendant’s attorney never sought to suppress the only incriminating evidence that the State had against them. The ACLU’s SSCI and the ACLU of Utah filed an amicus brief arguing that the defendant's trial counsel in this case was indeed ineffective and that holding otherwise would undermine the right to effective assistance of counsel.

Article I, section 9 of the Utah Constitution protects incarcerated individuals from both cruel and unusual punishment and unnecessarily rigorous treatment. This case asks whether death-sentenced plaintiffs seeking to challenge certain execution methods as cruel and unusual or unnecessarily rigorous under this provision must identify, in their pleadings, an alternative method of execution. The U.S. Supreme Court has required this alternative for Eighth Amendment challenges, but the ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, alongside the Capital Punishment Project and ACLU of Utah, filed an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs, arguing that federal caselaw does not limit the greater protections provided by section 9 of the Utah Constitution. Forcing prisoners challenging a method of execution to identify an acceptable alternative method is cruel, coercive, and not necessary to the administration of Utah’s death penalty laws.

This case involves a state constitutional challenge to the Utah Legislature’s 2021 redistricting plan, which was drawn to entrench the majority political party’s power and to discriminate against Utahns whose political expression aligns with an opposition political party. The ACLU and the ACLU of Utah filed an amicus brief in support of the challenge in the Utah Supreme Court, explaining why the redistricting map violates Utahns’ free-expression rights and why courts have the authority to block the map as unconstitutional.