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The Salt Lake City Justice Court opened its doors on July 1, 2002, with the intent to preserve the city’s ability to adjudicate traffic and low level criminal violations locally. The city has appointed judges with the hope they would be sensitive to community issues and willing to implement creative sentencing alternatives in keeping with an overall goal of providing restorative justice. Restorative justice provides for victim restitution, victim-offender reconciliation, and probation or pleas-in-abeyance; which requires the offender to reimburse the City for all case-related costs. The court has jurisdiction over all Class B and C misdemeanors, violation of ordinances, and infractions committed within Salt Lake City’s corporate limits. The court will work with many law enforcement agencies, which include University of Utah, Utah Highway Patrol, Salt Lake County Sheriff and Salt Lake City Police, that had previously filed in the District Court or Salt lake County Justice Court.

The justice court is made up of three sections. The criminal section handles misdemeanor criminal violations. The civil/traffic section (formerly the Administrative Enforcement Division) which administers a variety of programs, such as returned check collections, vehicle booting, impound hearings, ground transportation, alarm, zoning, snow removal, loud party, animal control, parking and traffic violations. The third section is the small claims section, which will settle legal issues and problems from contractual or service disputes or others claims which do not exceed the sum of $10,000.00. Small Claims has jurisdiction over cases in which the defendant resides or the debt arises within the geographic boundaries of Salt Lake City.

The City Justice Court handles approximately 90,000 cases per year. Just about half of these cases consist of misdemeanor criminal and small claims cases, which are new to the city. In the past the Third District Court has handled these cases. The court will work to achieve the goal of increased efficiency through programs such as Restorative Justice, and other special treatment programs such as domestic violence court and drug court. These programs will enable the judges, court staff and city administration to better deal with quality of life issues. Other jurisdictions around the country that have established similar courts have seen neighborhoods cleaned-up and downtown areas revitalized by the alternative sentencing programs, such as community service, that our new justice court will work with.

The Judges and staff of the Salt Lake City Justice Court are committed to the cities mission and goals and are working to effectively deal with ordinance violations and low level criminal offenses to make our city a better place to live and work in.