The Utah Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the case of a Utah County woman who was convicted of having sex with her 14-year-old foster son will have to go back to the state Court of Appeals.

In a decision handed down Tuesday, the Supreme Court said that the Court of Appeals used incorrect standards when hearing an appeal by 40-year-old Tammy Bluemel, formerly of Lehi.

In 2001, Bluemel was charged with seven counts of rape and one count of supplying alcohol to a minor. She later pleaded guilty to the alcohol charge and three counts of rape. She is currently serving her sentence of five years to life in prison.

Bluemel later said she was not competent to accept the plea deal because she was impaired by the number of medications she was on, including Neurontin, Effexor, Xanax, Trazodone, Soma, ibuprofen, Macrodantin and Axid. She missed the two-year deadline to file for post-conviction relief, but said that the deadline was missed because of inadequate representation by her attorney, who she said told her that he was handling the appeal.

Fourth District Judge James Taylor ruled that Bluemel was barred from bringing her impairment claim to court because she missed the deadline, but the Court of Appeals disagreed. According to assistant attorney General Brett Delporto, the Court of Appeals incorrectly based its ruling on a section of Utah law called Rule 11, which governs how plea deals are supposed to be entered. The Supreme Court agreed.

"It was a great decision. We asked the court to review what the Court of Appeals did, and the Supreme Court basically got it right. They reversed the holding of the Court of Appeals, which, in the view of our office, was a departure from Supreme Court precedent because the Supreme Court has held ... for a long time that a Rule 11 violation is not enough to warrant post-conviction relief," Delporto said.

Bluemel's attorney, Gregory Skordas, declined to comment, saying he had not yet seen the decision.

Bluemel's case will now go back to the Court of Appeals, which has a number of options, Delporto said. The court will have to decide whether Bluemel's claim has merit and whether there was a good reason for the delay in filing her petition.

Bluemel has said her attorney at the time failed to request a competency hearing based on her alleged inability to understand her plea deal because of her medications. Bluemel also said her attorney would not accept her calls or respond to written correspondence.

The Court of Appeals could also decide to send the case back to Taylor to determine whether Bluemel was competent enough to accept her plea deal. If she is found to have not been competent, the whole case could start over again with the original eight charges, Delporto said.

• Jeremy Duda can be reached at 344-2561 or jduda@heraldextra.com.