The Utah House unanimously passed a bill Tuesday designed to reduce appeals in death-row and other criminal cases. The bill now goes to the state Senate.

HB19 makes changes to the Post Conviction Remedies Act, which limits the claims that defendants can raise after they have been convicted and lost an initial appeal. The bill would allow a state court judge to dismiss petitions for post-conviction relief on a procedural basis, such as missing a filing deadline, without assessing the merits of the appeal.

Both the act and the bill's proposed change allow an exemption for defendants claiming their lawyers provided ineffective assistance. The legislation was written to work with a Jan. 4 change to Utah Supreme Court rules that also allows a judge to dismiss on a procedural basis a post-conviction appeal without a merits review.