DataUtah  

*These factors track the process--i.e. the effort and obstacles--for obtaining data from individual states under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and appeals process. These factors do not measure the quality of the data; only the process of attempting to obtain the data.

Utah blocked our initial FOIA request and subsequent appeal.

Ten emails back and forth with a DOC representative with promises of promising the request before her email went down.

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Although Utah stated that they would turn the data around to us by their due date of March 20, 2023, they stated that by contacting the PIO's office, we made an informal request for information rather than a formal records request governed by the State of Utah's Government Records Access and Management Act (GRAMA) law, so they did not need to comply to their own deadline. Despite us “bumping” our request each month until September, we did not and have not received a response as of December 2023.

In Utah, felony murder is codified in the first degree murder statute (Utah Code Ann. § 76-5-203).

Prosecutors can charge and convict any person of murder without having to prove that they intended to cause another person’s death. Prosecutors must only prove that a person committed or attempted to commit a specified felony and during or immediately thereafter a death occurs.

A conviction for felony murder carries a sentence of a minimum of 15 years and maximum of life imprisonment.