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Committee adopts substitute aimed at speeding return of seized digital devices, amid concerns over RCFL backlog
Summary
The committee adopted Substitute 4 to SB252 to establish procedures for mirroring and returning some data from seized computers and phones, while carving out CSAM; law enforcement and the attorney general supported the substitute but warned of a roughly one-year backlog at the Rocky Mountain Computer Forensics Lab (RCFL).
Senator Todd Wyler presented the bill and said he was advancing a watered-down fourth substitute after negotiations with prosecutors, law enforcement and other stakeholders. "My earnest goal in this is to get people who have not been convicted of anything yet or who won at trial, prevailed at trial, to just get them their stuff back," Wyler said.
The fourth substitute allows owners of seized digital devices to request specific data be mirrored and returned while excluding child sexual abuse material (CSAM) from any return requirement. The substitute also preserves prosecutorial discretion and existing judicial review: owners who are denied return may seek relief in court under current statutes.
Stuart Young, criminal deputy attorney general, told the committee the attorney general's office tentatively supports the fourth substitute and credited Senator Wyler for working across stakeholders. "We are very much in favor of this fourth sub," Young said. He and others noted the RCFL—Rocky Mountain Computer Forensics Lab, the regional digital forensics lab—has a backlog of about a year for imaging and extracting evidence, and that staffing and the large volume of data (gigabytes to terabytes per device) constrain turnaround.
Nate Mudder of the Attorney General's Office and others described RCFL as a regional lab serving multiple states and said private-sector partners and task-force structure limit state control of capacity. Local law enforcement officials, including representatives of the Utah Chiefs of Police Association and Unified Police Department, said they support the fourth substitute as a compromise; Beaver County, sheriffs and chiefs signaled opposition to earlier, broader versions of the bill.
Civil-liberties group Libertas Institute and a prosecutor also flagged a related constitutional point: Kristen Zimmerman cited a December 2023 Utah Supreme Court decision holding that compelling an owner to disclose device passwords may violate Fifth Amendment protections; the substitute reiterates that owners cannot be forced to provide a password to receive property return.
Committee members and witnesses acknowledged the substitute does not solve RCFL capacity problems. "It's a combination of a lot of factors, but it is resource driven and there is not as many resources available at the RCFL as, you know, we would like to see," Nate Mudder said.
Representative Gwen moved to adopt Substitute 4; the committee adopted the fourth substitute and passed SB252 out of committee with a favorable recommendation by voice vote, recorded in the transcript as passing unanimously. Committee members suggested interim study of RCFL capacity and exploring state-level capability for digital forensics.
