Teen who finished sentence in adult prison may have conviction tossed out

Teen who finished sentence in adult prison may have conviction tossed out

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SALT LAKE CITY — A South Ogden man who was 16 when he was convicted in adult court and sentenced to the Utah State Prison, where he served his time and was released, may now have his conviction thrown out.

Cooper Van Huizen, now 19, was convicted of two counts of robbery, a second-degree felony, in 2014. Van Huizen and four others robbed a Roy man at gunpoint of his cellphone, some money and a "little bit of weed," according to court records. Although Van Huizen, then 16, did not carry a weapon during the robbery and did not have any prior criminal history, he was ordered to stand trial in adult court and convicted under the Serious Youth Offender Act. He was sentenced to two concurrent terms of one to 15 years in prison.

The case gained national attention because after the case was moved from juvenile court to adult court, 2nd District Judge Ernie Jones went against presentence report recommendations and a plea agreement between defense attorneys and prosecutors. The two sides had agreed to recommend a sentence of some jail time followed by probation, and then his crimes would be reduced to misdemeanors once probation was completed.

Six months after he was sent to prison, during his first parole hearing, the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole, in a highly unusual move, ordered the boy released from prison the next day.

Van Huizen is now appealing the decision that bound him over from juvenile court to the adult system. On Friday, the Utah Court of Appeals sided with Van Huizen.

"We vacate the juvenile court’s bindover order and remand the issue for a new hearing before a different judge. If Van Huizen is bound over to district court, the results of his district court proceeding will remain undisturbed. If Van Huizen is not bound over, his convictions in the district court shall be vacated," the appeals court wrote in its decision.

The main argument in Van Huizen's appeal is that unbeknown to Van Huizen and his parents at the time, the juvenile court judge assigned to his case was married to the then-chief criminal deputy in the Weber County Attorney’s Office.

"In district court, the same deputy county attorney that had handled the juvenile proceedings continued to prosecute Van Huizen, and the attorney received at least some assistance from the juvenile judge’s husband, the chief criminal deputy in the prosecutor’s office," the appeals court wrote in its decision.

The appeals court noted that it had "no reason to think the juvenile judge was actually biased against Van Huizen."

But because the juvenile judge never told anyone who she was married to, thus never giving Van Huizen's attorneys the chance to motion that she recuse herself, the appeals court upheld Van Huizen's appeal.

"Even if the judge believes that recusal is not warranted under a given set of circumstances, it is better to disclose facts that might reasonably raise a question about impartiality and allow the parties to either waive the issue or file a motion for disqualification that will then be resolved by an independent judicial officer," according to the appeals court ruling.

"Because we have determined that the chief criminal deputy was within the chain of command for this case, we conclude that his marriage to the juvenile judge created an appearance of partiality," according to court documents.

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Pat Reavy

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