Because the two are so frequently lumped together in speech, and often occur together in action, assault and battery are often treated as one idea or charge. However, assault is something different from battery, and each one has other consequences within the legal system. Assault is putting another person in fear of bodily harm through threats or attempting to do bodily injury to another person. No...

Disorderly conduct arrests are a frequent, everyday occurrence. When it comes to arresting someone for ‘disorderly conduct,’ the police have an almost unlimited number of things they can arrest someone for. The actual language of the law states that “a person is guilty of disorderly conduct if: (a) he refuses to comply with the lawful order of the police to move from a public place, or knowingly...

Although arson is typically described in the media as intentionally setting buildings with human beings inside them ablaze, the definition of arson under Utah law is hardly so narrow. Reckless burning and abandoned fire are two other offenses that are eligible as arson in Utah. Unlike the other crimes, see Arson I, the offenses of reckless burning and abandoned fire cannot be charged as felonies, but they...

Arson is a crime that comes in many different degrees and names. At its most basic level, arson is the act of willfully and intentionally lighting someone else’s (or your own) property or things (perhaps even with a person(s) inside the intended target) on fire, with the desired result being incineration. Using explosives to destroy property also counts as arson, even if fire technically wasn’t the...

Although often treated as the same thing as theft and robbery, burglary is in truth neither. Burglary is its offense and doesn’t need to be accompanied by others to be classed as a crime. Burglary, at its base level, is simply the act of illegally entering a dwelling to commit another crime. That other crime could be theft or robbery, but it is not limited to those two; Utah code states that anyone who...

Under Utah law, a juvenile is someone who is under the age of 21 and has broken or violated the law – whether the law is local, state, or federal – before their eighteenth birthday. Youths under the age of fourteen are not responsible for criminal conduct or the violation of laws. When a juvenile commits a crime, the case is taken and tried before the juvenile court system, and only under...

As defined by Utah code, title 76, chapter 6, section 301, robbery occurs when someone “unlawfully and intentionally takes or attempts to take personal property in possession of another from his person, or immediate presence, against his will, through force or fear, and with a purpose or intent to deprive the person permanently or temporarily of the personal property. Or, the person intentionally or...