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Audit says Utah courts don’t keep adequate track of evidence

Related Topics: Utah, Geoffrey Fattah, Property room

District and juvenile courts in Utah aren’t efficiently tracking and protecting evidence used in trials, and staff in charge of storage rooms aren’t adequately trained in how to inventory or dispose of items — such as drugs or firearms — in their care, a newly released audit said.

When state officials first started examining six district and three juvenile courts, they discovered that evidence management systems didn’t allow them to take inventory of what was retained (or wasn’t) to determine whether items had gone missing, according to the audit released Tuesday.

Court clerks often kept handwritten notes about the status of evidence, and in four instances, storage rooms were accessible with just a traditional metal key rather than a key card — meaning anyone with that key could enter and leave no trace of who had been inside.