Utah Court of Appeals hears challenge to juror impartiality and DNA evidence in State v. Bunton

SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Court of Appeals on the morning of the argument heard competing claims over whether the trial court erred in seating a juror who told the court he might be biased in cases involving children, and whether forensic evidence found years later was relevant or unduly prejudicial.

Sarah Carlquist, counsel for Brian Bunton, told the three-judge panel that juror 23 “told the court and the parties, ‘I do have my own opinions about the case, I guess, involving children,’ ” and later said, “I don’t think I’d be able to give an unbiased decision on the case.” Carlquist argued that the prosecutor’s follow-up voir dire reinforced, rather than dispelled, that bias and that the trial court had no adequate record basis under Rule 18 of the Utah Rules of Criminal Procedure to conclude the juror was impartial. She asked the court to reverse on that ground and said the juror’s presence infected the entire trial.

The defense also pressed a separate but related argument challenging the admission and use of forensic evidence: Carlquist said the prosecution introduced a semen stain collected March 19, 2021, on a child’s twin-patterned sheet and argued to the jury about that stain even though the charged offenses related to an earlier 18-month period ending in January 2018. She said the timing, an absence of evidence about when the sheet was last changed, and the presence of another adult male in the house at times left too many unknowns for the jury to draw a fair inference. “There is so much unknown about this DNA evidence that you can’t really draw any fair inferences from it and yet it’s floating out there for the jury to use,” Carlquist said.

Brian Christensen, arguing for the state, responded that the later-found stain was probative of an element of aggravated sexual assault — the intent to arouse or gratify sexual desire — pointing to the stain’s location on a small area of a twin bed and the lack of evidence that another male had used that bed. “This is evidence of male sexual arousal,” Christensen said, arguing the evidence was intrinsic to the charged offense under the applicable case law and not classic propensity evidence barred by Rule 404(b).

On the juror-impartiality claim, Christensen told the panel that juror 23’s initial statements reflected emotional discomfort rather than disqualifying bias, that the juror repeatedly affirmed he could set aside personal feelings and decide based on the evidence, and that the trial judge—who observed the juror on multiple topics—had a factual basis to conclude the juror could be fair. The state distinguished the case from precedents in which prosecutors were found to have indoctrinated jurors during questioning.

The court’s questions probed legal standards and preservation: justices asked whether additional voir dire questioning mattered, how abuse-of-discretion review should operate in the context of for-cause juror challenges, whether the trial judge had to make an explicit factual articulation of why the juror’s bias was rebutted, and whether the defense had preserved a chronology-based objection to the DNA evidence.

In rebuttal, Carlquist emphasized cumulative prejudice — juror partiality plus what she characterized as the prejudicial impact of the forensic evidence, redacted material in phone calls, and religiously framed argument — and again asked the court to reverse. The panel thanked counsel, took the matter under advisement and said it will issue an opinion in due course.

The court did not announce a decision from the bench; the appeals court’s written opinion will be the next procedural step.