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NEPHI — Portions of a man's phone conversation with his father from the back of a police car can be used as evidence in a trial against him, but not parts identifying the gun the man is accused of using when police say he fired at cars along I-15, a judge ruled Tuesday.
Adam Lloyd Gheen, 20, of Goshen, is charged with five counts of attempted murder, a first degree felony; and five counts of criminal mischief, a class A misdemeanor.
Early on the morning of Nov. 30, 2021, multiple people reported shots fired on I-15 between Nephi and Scipio over a 30-minute period, Utah Highway Patrol Sgt. Cameron Roden said at the time. According to charging documents, one man was taken to a hospital after a bullet entered and exited his back, and a woman's chest was grazed by a bullet.
The information about the gun was given while Gheen's father was acting as an agent of law enforcement and so evidence about that will not be allowed at trial, 4th District Judge Anthony Howell announced in an order signed on Tuesday.
However, the judge determined the father was not acting for police when he asked his son whether he had shot someone. Statements Gheen allegedly made to his father about shooting at someone, shooting someone and grazing someone will be allowed at trial, despite the motion from Gheen and his attorney, Staci Visser, to suppress it from the trial.
Gheen was in custody at the time of the conversation and had invoked his Miranda rights, the right to remain silent and the right to counsel, and law enforcement could not question him, the order states.
It also states officers had told the Gheen family they were looking for a specific gun, but had little information about it.
"In the course of those conversations, it became very clear to the Gheens that if they could help law enforcement identify the gun, that it would prevent law enforcement from taking other guns from the Gheen home. As a result, Mark Gheen volunteered to ask Adam to identify the gun the officers were looking for," the order said.
Howell determined that whether the father was acting in his own self interest, as prosecutors claimed, or in the interest of the officers doesn't matter — he obtained a statement identifying the gun and immediately communicated that to law enforcement.
Gheen is scheduled back in court for a pretrial conference on April 18. He is currently in custody at the Juab County Jail.
