Conviction on testimony of accomplice -- Instruction to jury
Applied in 11 court decisions — leading case State v. Sarracino (1998)
Most recently applied in State v. Kitzmiller (August 2021)
Enacted by Chapter 15, 1980 General Session
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
(1) A conviction may be had on the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice.
(2) In the discretion of the court, an instruction to the jury may be given to the effect that such uncorroborated testimony should be viewed with caution, and such an instruction shall be given if the trial judge finds the testimony of the accomplice to be self contradictory, uncertain or improbable.
Official source: Utah State Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Utah statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.