This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The Utah Supreme Court has upheld the dismissal of a child molester's appeal that claimed his lawyer was ineffective for failing to inform him about a plea bargain allegedly offered by prosecutors.
The 5-0 ruling, in the case of Shannon Glen Winward, was handed down Wednesday.
Winward's first trial in 3rd District Court on charges that he sexually abused three boys in his Kearns home ended in a deadlocked jury in 1994. He was found guilty of four counts of child sodomy and one count of sexual abuse of a child in a second trial and sentenced to 15 years to life behind bars, and his conviction was upheld by the Utah Court of Appeals.
In 2009, Winward, 49, filed a petition for post-conviction relief on the grounds that his attorney was ineffective, among other claims. A 3rd District judge dismissed his claims and Winward appealed.
The state Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal of all but one of Winward's claims in 2012. That year, the U.S. Supreme Court issued two decisions giving defendants the right to effective assistance of counsel during plea-bargaining, not just during a trial. Based on those rulings, Winward's case was sent back to 3rd District Court to pursue his ineffective assistance claim.
The 3rd District Court again dismissed the appeal and the case returned to the state Supreme Court, which agreed that the U.S. Supreme Court decisions were not retroactive and did not create a basis for the remaining claim.
Twitter: @PamelaMansonSLC