Utah courts keeping secret investigations away from public eye

SALT LAKE CITY — Most cases on file in courthouses throughout the state can be readily retrieved with a name or number — available to anyone who wants to see them.

But dozens of special criminal investigations tucked away in a locked cabinet and logged in a spiral notebook rarely, if ever, meet the public eye.

Though the files contain a mix of public and private documents detailing activities of state, county and city prosecutors, there is no way for the public to access them or even know they exist. Each one comes with a court-issued secrecy order and the court uses an off-the-grid numbering system to account for them.

Law enforcement routinely uses what are known as investigative subpoenas to root out crime much like a grand jury would. But though judges sanction the investigation, they have little oversight after their initial blessing. And there's no way to know if the records the law requires for each file are included.

Prosecutors say the secrecy serves to keep from tipping off bad guys or to protect witnesses. Some defense attorneys, though, say the practice leaves room for abuse by overzealous prosecutors.

"You can't just go around telling people you're investigating them. It's not very effective," said Scott Reed, criminal justice division chief in the Utah Attorney General's Office.

Kent Hart, executive director of the Utah Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, doesn't dispute that there are times when secrecy is needed, but those are rare.

"Anything done in secret is going to be relying on the good faith of the prosecutor," he said. "There has to be a check somewhere on the prosecutor and police or the risk is they will run roughshod over unsuspecting people."

Utah's subpoena powers law allows the attorney general's office and county and city attorneys to question witnesses and obtain evidence such as bank or income tax records with the approval of a judge. Prosecutors must provide a statement of good cause to justify a subpoena and secrecy order.

Secrecy orders are public records, but there is no way to know the files even exist. The court uses a separate numbering system for those cases. They do not appear on public court dockets nor are they entered into the court's computer database.

In the Matheson Courthouse in Salt Lake City, cases are logged with handwritten entries in a black spiral notebook, which the court does not allow the public to view. The files are kept in a locked cabinet.