Poor Mr. Olsen has to have his fate decided by a rookie judge that does not even know what the term "without authority of law" means, but he's determined he is going to define it for the jury all by himself.

Rookie judges think they know it all and don't need to listen to the attorneys like Yengich who have been around a lot longer than they have been a judge, and often are much brighter.

They figure if they are wrong, the appellate court will fix it in a year or two, no harm done.

Meanwhile the lives of the poor people appearing before them will have been destroyed before the appeal is over. All because they are too arrogant to actually listen.

It takes a few years of being reversed on appeal before rookie judges start to listen to the attorneys in front of them and stop playing god for the poor fools who happen to have the misfortune of being the judge's practice cases.

Since Olsen is the one who will have to pay for Judge Mortensen's rookie mistake, not the Judge, what does the Judge care if Olsen has to suffer pending appeal?

Poor Mr. Olsen? How can taking public funds without attending the conference(s) make Mr. Olson a victim?

Rookie judge or not, it will be the jury who decides whether Poor Mr. Olsen is convicted. I am quite sure there is no law that says a public official can use public money for his own use and purposes. Whether Olsen did or not is a decision the jury will make.

Not only are city laws applicable the state laws also apply. This may be a clear case of violation of trust in an elected position regardless of the laws and misuse of funds. The jury has an open book to convict the mayor and all laws will apply in the jury room. The jury has the authroity to override any judge or prosecutor or defense attorney in deciding the mayors conviction and laws broken as they can consider other state or federal laws. Cities and its elected officials are also sworn to abide by them in their position of trust.

It seem that month after month, year after year we are bombarded by an avalanche of news revealing yet another crooked politician in Eagle Mountain. It appears that this new city has no laws on the books or that they have no honest citizens willing to serve. My suggestion would be for them to adopt all city laws being used by a larger, older city. These laws have stood the test of time, and would provide a good starting point. A through investigation of all candidates is strongly suggested.

Bob G your ignorance of the jury system is embarrassing. In order for there to be a criminal conviction, there must actually be a specific criminal law that was broken. This is the very essence of our constitutional right to due process. We cannot be criminally guilty of violating a law that does not exist.

So that is the issue here: what law applies?

There is no federal criminal law that applies to city funds in this case.

There is no state criminal law other than the one referenced in the story, i.e., an appropriation of public funds without authority of law.

The question therefore becomes what does the law "authorize" in regards to city expenses and reimbursements.

The only law on point is City law. And as Mr. Yengich is trying to point out to the rookie judge, if there is no clear city law regarding appropriation of expense reimbursements that was actually violated, then there can be no criminal conviction.

There may be a moral wrong here, but is it a criminal wrong? That is what has to be decided, and the rookie judge thinks he gets to do that on his own. That's the problem.

I'm not sure what you are talking about. Year after year? This case is two years old. Every time the newspaper has an update to an old story does not mean that another politician has become tainted. You are also naive to believe that older cities have better laws. If anything older cities have a little more experience at keeping bad things under their hats. I know some past incidents at the state and county level that have never hit the news cycle and would make your hair stand on end if you knew about them. In a lot of ways, Eagle Mountain is a lot like the state of Utah during the Olympic bid process. Salt Lake city was doing nothing different than other candidate cities have done in bribing Olympic officials--they just got caught. Like the SLOC officials, some Eagle Mountain politicians aren't savvy enough to keep from getting caught in their misdeeds. Eagle Mountain or SLOC aren't the only recent examples. If memory serves, a few years ago there was a major news story about Salt Lake County fleet vehicles being used for personal business. Let's not forget the Davis School District embezzlement scheme either.

The problem in Eagle Mountain is that there is a land speculator that owns most of the developable land out there. He finances certain politicians and has them on his payroll, which include Mark Madsen. If anyone gets in his way they press the prosecutors that they also financed to file charges against them. That's why so many politicians in Eagle Mountain are charged with crimes.