Investigators in Utah do a more consistent job with DUI cases than with domestic violence or sexual assault, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said — and he’s suggesting a way to improve that “sad reality.”
The problem, Gill said Thursday, is that law enforcement officers statewide follow the same initial process in investigating a DUI, but officers in Utah don’t have a uniform protocol for handling crime scenes immediately after responding to domestic violence calls.
Such crime scene investigations, Gill explained during a news conference to recognize Domestic Violence Awareness Month, can be crucial in prosecuting abusers if their accuser declines to share their testimony.
Stronger, more uniform investigations by all police departments at domestic violence crime scenes, Gill said, should lead to stronger cases against alleged abusers, even if accusers decide to stop cooperating with law enforcement.
“Our goal, as you’ve heard me say over the years, is justice should not be the accident of geography,” he said.
The state in July 2023 established Utah’s Lethality Assessment Protocol, by which officers assess a domestic violence victim’s level of risk. Gill called that process a step in the right direction, but added that more should be done to ensure officers statewide follow consistent procedures.
Gill said he has taken the first steps to make sure best practices are followed by investigators in his own district.
Last year, Gill’s office received a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, to help better investigate and prosecute domestic violence. Gill said some of that grant has been used to bring in Sgt. Rob Scott from Unified Police to work as a liaison between prosecutors and police.
Scott, who has worked on domestic and sexual violence cases for about eight years, holds meetings in which law enforcement agencies can share successful investigative methods, Gill said. Scott also works with other organizations involved in investigating domestic violence in Salt Lake County — including the Children’s Justice Center, Utah Division of Child and Family Services, Wasatch Forensic Nurses and the University of Utah’s Safe and Healthy Families — to help their investigators, Gill said.
Lt. Adrian Montelongo of the South Jordan Police Department said conversations and trainings with Scott have proved helpful in better informing officers on how to respond to domestic violence situations. Such situations often can be tense and confusing, he said, but officers “owe it” to victims to be prepared to conduct challenging interviews and gather accurate facts.
Refining protocols on the scene, Gill said, is part of a push by prosecutors and police to understand the trauma that domestic violence victims are dealing with — and help them with obstacles that might be keeping them in a dangerous situation.
“We have this mindset: ‘Well, if you’re in an abusive relationship, why don’t you just leave, right?’” he said. “And what we fail to recognize or we forget is people stay in abusive relationship for a whole host of different reasons.” Some reasons, he said, can be religious or economic.
If someone isn’t willing to testify against their alleged abuser as attorneys build a case, he said attorneys might be able to help with whatever is keeping them in a dangerous situation.
Gill recalled a case where as he was preparing to prosecute an alleged abuser, and before trial a woman was hesitant to tell him she had been the victim of domestic violence. His questions, he said, were going nowhere.
Eventually, he said, the woman told him her partner had physically abused her several times. He said he wasn’t prepared when she said she knew her partner would abuse her again — but she had to stay with him so her kids could have medical coverage.
“If I can get her access to medical coverage, then she is going to get up and leave this person,” Gill remembered thinking. “It’s about understanding what that need is.”
Creating a consistent process, Gill said, will ensure that investigators from every law enforcement agency gather the information needed to form a strong case — even if a victim decides not to cooperate.
“Justice should be available to everyone,” he said.