Sentence widens the options for Utah jurors

There was a time when Utah jurors faced a tough and narrow choice: condemn a convicted murderer to die, or give him life in prison with the possibility he could someday be paroled.

Today, jurors have another option that might satisfy the needs of justice in better ways — a life-without-parole sentence that means a felon will never walk the streets again. It was adopted as an alternative to the death penalty in 1992.

Although only a few criminal defendants in Utah have ended up behind bars for good, prosecutors, defense lawyers and many victims say the law is a useful tool in grievous criminal cases.

It reduces the risk of losing a potential capital case for prosecutors. For juries, it spares them the trauma of having to decide whether to sentence someone to death, a troubling action in any murder case, but an especially difficult one in situations where the evidence is not overwhelmingly clear-cut.

Utah Department of Corrections records show there are 22 men and one woman in prison with that sentence.

There are nine men on death row in Utah.

First-degree felony murder generally carries a sentence of five-years-to-life in prison, with the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole deciding how long someone actually spends behind bars after the five-year period.

Salt Lake County District Attorney David Yocom, a veteran prosecutor who also has worked as a defense attorney, strongly supported changing the state law to offer the life without parole option.

"It's a tool for juries as well as prosecutors and defense attorneys, too," Yocom said. "It's an alternative to avoid asking a jury of 12 people to make that decision," to impose the death penalty.

"I've talked to a lot of jurors in death-penalty cases, and the hardest thing you could ask a citizen to do is sit in judgment of life or death over an individual. It's a very difficult job to do."

Aside from the emotional aspect of deciding a life-or-death case, there also are legal considerations. A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling has made it harder to get convictions in death-penalty cases when the defendant is mentally deficient.

The landmark ruling in 2002 prohibited executing criminals who are mentally retarded, saying it violates the Eighth Amendment constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.