| OCR Text |
Show The county attorney Council for fhe prosecution i ! By Steve Christensen Editor's Note: Eighth in a series on the judicial system. Many of us think we have more to do than we can logically get done in the time allotted us to do it. But the future of no one hangs in the balance if we don't do our job quite as good as we might have. Since the first of the year, there have been 165 criminal cases registered in the Uintah County Attorney's office. County Attorney Mark Nash doesn't have the option of just skimming over his work, and doing the best he can in a 40 hour week. He is charged with the responsibility to see that criminals are dealt with, and that justice is done. If the case he prepares is inadequate, there is a chance a criminal may go unpunished. The county attorney's job is very involved. in-volved. He is the prosecuting attorney for the state and the county. He is council for the county, meaning mostly the county commission. He represents the county in civil action brought against the county. He prosecutes in actions the county brings against people, and he is agent for the state in cases of recovery services. As prosecuting attorney for Uintah County, Mark Nash takes the place of Attorney At-torney Berger on the old Perry Mason television series, only Nash wins more often than Berger did against Perry Mason. Nash appears in behalf of the state in District Court, Circuit Court, Justice Courts, and Juvenile Court. There are perhaps two days a month he is not involved in court. This creates real problems in preparing cases, and often keeps Nash at the office into the late hours of the night. I As council for the county, Nash is often I called upon to give a legal opinion to the ; county commission. This creates an in-j in-j teresting situation. The commission need not follow his advice in their course of ac- tion. Then, if a court case should arise, : Nash is called upon to defend the county when it is possible the commission acted i against his advice, which may have kept : them from a lawsuit in the first place. t " t t " "m -1 - - - - ' - J ' ' " ft J , f I ' - , i '. ... s ; :,: f 'o- f f JV . t MARK NASH county attorney see job as more than just skimming skimm-ing over his work. Should the county wish to bring a civil action case against an individual, Nash again finds himself on the prosecuting side of the legal table. He also prosecutes for the state when it is believed the state has unjustifiably paid bills due to such things as payment made when a person failed to pay child support, or fraudulent welfare claims. It is the job of the county coun-ty attorney to recover this money when and where possible. The county attorney is in a very powerful power-ful position. In criminal cases it is the county attorney who decides whether or Continued on page 2 Mark Nash - County Attorney... Continued from page 1 not to prosecute, and what charges will be filed, and after a conviction, the county coun-ty attorney makes a sentencing recommendation recom-mendation to the judge. Although the judge is in no w ay bound by this recommendation, recom-mendation, it carries significant weight. There is no w ay every case filed could ever come to court. If they did. a case entered today may be tried in 199C. Plea bargaining is an integral part of keeping the courts from becoming more crowded crowd-ed than they already are. There are two main ways plea bargaining is used. The first is in multiple charge situations. The second is reducing the level of a crime. There are reasons for both, and the reasons go beyond clearing up the court calendar. Sometimes cases are very complex. It could be that one piece of evidence can swing the case one way or another. Sometimes evidence is not even allowed to be used, due to being obtained illegally, illegal-ly, or determined to be inadmissable evidence for some reason. If the county attorney finds himself facing a situation w here he doesn't know w hether a piece of evidence will be allow ed, and the case hinges on that evidence, he may attempt to plea bargain. A second degree felony, which carries a prison sentence of 1 to 15 years may be reduced to a third degree felony, which only carries a sentence of up to S years, in exchange for the defendant pleading guilty. Since the person will not plead guilty to any charge if he is innocent, his plea of guilty to the lesser charge is still admission of guilt. Nash says in situations like this, he prefers to get a conviction on a lesser charge than none at all. When a person is convicted of multiple crimes involving the same incident and the same charge, most often the judge will sentence the person to serve the sentences simultaneously. In many cases one conviction will do the same as several. Knowing this, the county attorney at-torney will often plea bargain with the defense council to drop a portion of the charges if the suspect will plead guilty to the other portion. This not only serves justice, but also helps speed justice in other cases. Nash emphasized that plea bargaining is not the way cases are decided. Cases are decided only on the merits of. the facts. Only after a decision has been made, is plea bargaining entered into. Nash said he will agree to a plea bargain only if he believes the outcome is good for the state and fair to people he is charged to protect. The county attorney is involved in an interesting dicotomy w ithin the judicial framework. The defense attorney has one job. to see that his client is not convicted. con-victed. They w ill do everything legally possible to see that occur. The county attorney at-torney is not charged with the responsibility respon-sibility to do everything in his power to get a conviction. He is charged with doing do-ing everything in his power to see that justice is done. The county attorney actually ac-tually has a legal obligation to disclose information which might help the defense. A county attorney may move for dismissal of the case at any time it does not appear in the interests of justice to continue. In this instance the county attorney at-torney is not all powerful, since once the case has come to court the judge must I do the actual dismissing, and such a notion no-tion by the county attorney may be denied. The county attorney is elected to act and serves four years. He is paid by is county entirely. The county is reisz?-ed, reisz?-ed, to a certain extent, for work the era-ty era-ty attorney does for the state in reccvery cases. Although the county attorneys not forbidden to keep a private pnetce. time will not allow Nash to do mxh it his own practice. The county attoneyis forbidden to do any defense wort vsi any partners the county attorney say have are also forbidden to work as defense council. Nash says be feei t responsibility to the county, aad Sat work alw ays comes first. Because of is. he has little of his private practiced but he said, that just comes r. Se territory. |
