How Utah's self-defense law could impact decisions in deadly 'No Kings' protest shooting

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

Salt Lake County prosecutors consider charges in a deadly 'No Kings' protest shooting.
Utah's strong self-defense law complicates potential prosecution, says attorney Mitch Vilos.
Defendants can seek case dismissal in justification hearings, complicating prosecution efforts.

SALT LAKE CITY — As Salt Lake County prosecutors are weighing what charges, if any, to file after a deadly shooting at the "No Kings" protest in Salt Lake City, Utah's self-defense law is likely a factor influencing the deliberation.

"We have one of the strongest self-defense laws in the country," said Utah attorney Mitch Vilos, who helped write the law and has authored two books about gun laws.

Vilos said he doesn't envy the job of Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill.

"I know Sim Gill personally. He's a man of integrity," said Vilos. "And I just agonize every time he has to make a decision like that."

The decision before Gill's office is whether to charge Arturo Gamboa, the man police arrested after shots rang out — or a self-identified "peacekeeper", the unidentified man who opened fire, wounding Gamboa and killing an innocent bystander.

"You don't have anyone with evil intent that I know of based upon the news stories," said Vilos.

Based on the information officials have provided to the public thus far, Vilos said he doesn't see how prosecutors can win a case against either man.

"The man with the AR-15 might have been, you know, there to protect," he said. "And the peacekeepers were there to protect, and they were faced with an immediate potential threat."

A criminal prosecution against the man who fired shots could involve multiple hurdles, Vilos said, including Utah's self-defense law. It was changed in 2021 to allow defendants a chance to try to get their case thrown out before trial in what's called a justification hearing.

"It requires a state to show by clear and convincing evidence that it was not self-defense," said Vilos, or in this case, the defense of others.

There's also the high burden of proof a jury would have to find — beyond a reasonable doubt.

While Vilos doesn't think prosecutors can meet the burden of proof in a criminal case, he does believe the man who pulled the trigger could be liable in civil court, where the standard of proof is lower.

"There's almost always insurance coverage here," he said.

But he also said sometimes a criminal conviction can interfere with whether an insurance company will pay out damages.

"If there's justice in this case, it's probably going to be an insurance company paying damages," said Vilos.

With no one currently in custody related to the shooting, prosecutors are no longer under a strict deadline for when they have to make those tough decisions.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

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Daniella Rivera

Daniella Rivera joined the KSL team in September 2021. She’s an investigative journalist with a passion for serving the public through seeking and reporting truth. After graduating from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, Daniella started her career reporting for her hometown station in Sherman, Texas in 2014. There, she covered a little bit of everything, including tornadoes, historic flooding, and the criminal justice system. Looking for an adventure, Daniella moved to Anchorage, Alaska where she lived for more than six years and developed her passion for investigative journalism. Her reporting in Alaska exposed a loophole in the state’s sexual assault sentencing laws, sparking changes to those laws less than a year later. Daniella has also traveled along the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race route to cover the race twice and contributed live breaking news coverage of the aftermath of a 7.1 earthquake. Daniella’s reporting has earned three regional Edward R. Murrow awards and a regional Emmy award and the Alaska Broadcaster’s Association named her Broadcaster of the Year in 2018. When she’s not working, Daniella is living an exciting story of her own. She and her husband enjoy exploring the great outdoors and trying local restaurants. They live in Salt Lake City with their kitty and corgi pup.