New data that shows how little time Utah judges spend reading search warrants before approving them has some groups pushing for a change in state law. What’s their idea? Require judges to explain, in writing, why they signed off.
Judges approved more than 10,000 electronic warrants in a one-year period beginning in April 2018, everything from requests to draw the blood of suspected drunken drivers to authorizing police to force their way into someone’s home without warning.
Half of those warrants were approved in less than three minutes — and hundreds were signed off in less than 30 seconds, according to data acquired through a public-records request from Libertas Institute, a libertarian-leaning Utah think tank, which has been interested in this topic for the past few years.