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Ex-deputy Utah County attorney chides efforts to abolish death penalty

By Genelle Pugmire - | Dec 29, 2021

GRANT HINDSLEY, Daily Herald file photo

Deputy Utah County Attorney Curtis Larson gives the prosecuting opening argument for the Danny Logue trial in the 4th District Court in Provo on Thursday, Jan. 22, 2015.

On Sept. 8, Utah County Attorney David Leavitt announced he intended to do away with the death penalty on capital cases in the county.

That announcement and subsequent comments and press briefings has brought both agreement and consternation from police, legislators and voters.

On Wednesday, Curtis L. Larson, a former attorney in the Utah County Attorney’s office who spent 42-plus years in the criminal justice system, took exception to Leavitt’s stand on the death penalty.

Larson’s commentary was in the form of an open letter to Gov. Spencer Cox and was sent to media and legislators containing extensive case analysis and data to support his stand on the issue.

Larson served nearly 27 years as a prosecuting attorney and handled thousands of cases, including aggravated murders, murders, manslaughter, adult and child sex offenses, along with other types of violent and nonviolent crimes.

Isaac Hale, Daily Herald file photo

Utah County Attorney David Leavitt speaks during a press conference concerning his intent on whether or not to seek the death penalty for Jerrod Baum on Wednesday, July 31, 2019, at the Utah County Commission Chambers in Provo.

Before retiring, Curtis served in Leavitt’s administration two separate times and in two different positions, as screening division chief and director of data and statistical analysis.

Larson said he has frequent contact with county law enforcement officials, and “We share similar concerns regarding the direction Mr. Leavitt is taking the office in the enforcement of enacted laws, and the protection of society from criminal victimization. Despite this, you’ll note that I, alone, issued the letter.”

Larson said during his time in the attorney’s office he spent several hours discussing office personnel, prosecution and political savvy among other things.

Larsen noted that he had run for the Utah County Attorney position in 2002 and 2006. Leavitt’s term is over in 2022 and he will be up for reelection in November.

Asked whether he intends to run for Leavitt’s job, Larson told the Daily Herald, “I have no intention of running for the office. And my wife doesn’t want me to run either! As I have told others, basically, heaven and earth would have to shake for me to change my mind.”

In discussing his visits with Leavitt, Larson said he was asked to work on several tasks and initiatives he deemed “non-conservative” that Leavitt desired to establish in the attorney’s office.

“So, it didn’t surprise me when David announced that his office would no longer seek the death penalty for any offense, no matter its level of violence,” Larson wrote in his letter.

Larson also noted in his letter to Cox that Leavitt co-authored a letter to the governor with “fellow county prosecuting attorneys Sim Gill, Margaret Olson (both democrats), and Christina Sloan (an apparent unaffiliated ‘progressive independent’ [her description on Twitter not mine]), requesting that the death penalty be repealed.”

“This is neither a conservative nor liberal issue. This is an American issue,” Leavitt said in response to Larson’s political name calling on the issue.

“Reforming a broken criminal justice system requires an honest look at past practices and an unflinching evaluation of the costs to our community,” Leavitt said. “Despite how well-meaning and well-intended Mr. Larson is, his stance perpetuates the seriously flawed practices of a broken system and entrenches the dysfunction of how the death penalty is actually administered.”

In his letter to Cox, Larson pointed out Leavitt’s unique position on the issue among his peers.

“According to a news report, David is the only county prosecuting attorney, of the 29 in Utah, which has openly announced that he will ignore the State’s current death penalty laws, despite their being countenanced in the Utah and the U.S. Constitutions, and repeatedly upheld as constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court,” Larson wrote.

He continued, “If you haven’t gathered this already, I’m personally, and was professionally, a strong proponent of the death penalty and do not believe it should be repealed. I believe that if capital punishment is entirely abrogated a significant harm to society and the patency of the criminal justice system will result, and measurable justice for the victims and their families abated.”

“Yet, despite the level of my conviction I’m not so hardened that I can’t understand the beliefs, thoughts, impressions and reasons of those who oppose the death penalty, or discern that perhaps a fine tuning of the statutes might not be reasonable,” Larson added.

He also said he would work with others to determine if, or how, state statutes could be modified. Though for now, he said, his position is on the side of “the constitutional law of the nation and Utah.”

“All must agree, at least in principle, that when capital punishment is executed on a person it is an irrevocable sentence, as it’s intended to be,” Larson wrote.

Leavitt noted there was a time in the history of medicine that the best options were lobotomies and leeches, and that both also did significant harm.

“Thankfully, we continue to embrace progress and innovation to provide more effective and safe medicine. We should also look at how we administer justice and be willing to innovate there too,” Leavitt said. “The death penalty doesn’t do what we think it can, or should, and it’s time to move forward to improve a badly broken criminal justice system.”

In discussing various points of the issue, Larson’s letter used data to support his argument for the death penalty.

“The value of capital punishment as a deterrent of crime is a complex factual issue the resolution of which properly rests with the legislatures, which can evaluate the results of statistical studies in terms of their own local conditions and with a flexibility of approach that is not available to the courts,” Larson wrote.

He also questioned prosecutors’ presentation and interpretation of statistics to substantiate arguments attached to the death penalty, such as the impact on minorities involved in such cases.

His letter noted that since 1854, Utah has executed 50 convicted murderers, of which approximately 95% were white; that of the convicted murderers executed in last 45 years, five out of seven, or 71%,were white; and that of the convicted murderers currently on death row, four of seven, or 57%, are white.

“If we add into their statistical conundrum a previously reported variable, that whites account for 69.17% of all homicide offenders in 2020, and therefore, more likely to face a death sentence, their foundation collapses in its entirety,” Larson wrote. “And it clearly establishes that their statement, ‘Utah is more likely to execute racial minorities than white people for the same offense’ is unsupported, and incredible.”

When it comes to taxpayer costs, Larson noted, “It should be readily understood by all that seeking the death penalty will result in additional costs. The question is whether the cost outweighs the right society has for protection from the most vile of criminals.”

After more than 4,000 words on the subject, Larson concluded his open letter to Cox by writing, “When all is said-and-done, there isn’t any accurate supporting data for the prosecutors’ intimated argument that the death penalty should be repealed because of the financial costs to taxpayers. Yes, there is an increased cost, yet state financial data readily reveals that Utah can easily provide the funding for death penalty cases each year, without even adjusting any of its current, or future, budgetary interests, or raising taxes.”

Utah could proactively create a budgeted expenditure fund for these prosecutions, Larson argued.

Countered Leavitt, society can use life in prison without parole — “which is a death sentence,” he noted — to protect our community.

“We can wisely use budgeted taxpayer funds to serve victims of the other 18 murders and over 200 sexual crimes in our office that are at risk because one death penalty case draws resources away,” he said.

Leavitt added he believes in transparency and honest discussion, directing the public to “explore the studies, opinions of your elected officials, and links” available on the website utahsvoice.org, which features words by Utah County Commissioners Bill Lee and Amelia Powers Gardner.

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