Senate committee recommends bill to ‘raise the bar’ on use of gang enhancement penalties

Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill made international headlines last summer when he used Utah’s gang enhancement law to bring increased penalties against the protesters who allegedly damaged his building during a July demonstration.Those charges — which included a potential life sentence for a woman who allegedly purchased paint that was spread outside of the office as part of the protest — were “clearly not how [the gang enhancement] was intended to be used,&rdq