The State of Utah, Plaintiff and Respondent v. Anthony L. Long, Defendant and Appellant

Summary

The court reversed Long's convictions and remanded for a new trial because the State failed to properly authenticate copies of records offered to prove his prior felony conviction and because the trial court refused a requested cautionary instruction concerning the reliability of the central eyewitness identification. The court held that official-record authentication must come from the legal custodian or a properly established official custodian of the records, and adopted a rule requiring a cautionary eyewitness-identification instruction when identification is central and the defense requests one. Chief Justice Hall and Justice Howe, concurring in part and dissenting in part, would have affirmed the aggravated-assault conviction because circumstantial evidence independently supported it and the instruction remained discretionary.