If the Utah County Attorney’s Office is disqualified, how is a special prosecutor appointed and what precedents exist in Utah?

1. How Utah law authorizes appointment: the supervising judge’s role

Utah’s grand‑jury and prosecutorial statutes delegate authority to the court when a local prosecutor cannot or must not proceed: upon written notice from the electing prosecutor or when disqualification is otherwise warranted, the supervising judge is required to appoint a special prosecutor in accordance with Chapter 10A of Title 77, giving the judge the statutory power to name an outside prosecutor to handle grand jury matters or prosecutions the county office cannot pursue ^{[1] [3]}. The Utah Courts’ materials echo that framework in practice, describing that an attorney for the state, county attorney, district attorney, or a special prosecutor may be tied to grand jury work and that the court will appoint substitute counsel when the statutory conditions arise ^[2].

2. Practical mechanics: who proposes, who pays, and what the special prosecutor does

The statutory snippets indicate a sequence: a written notice or other triggering disclosure leads the supervising judge to appoint a special prosecutor selected under the statutory criteria, and the governmental entity that supports the originally electing prosecutor is obligated to reimburse the state for expenses incurred because of the appointment and compensation of that special prosecutor—meaning local taxpayers or the county typically bear the financial consequences, albeit through the statutory reimbursement mechanism ^[1]. Once appointed, the attorney for the state or the special prosecutor performs the procedural duties associated with grand‑jury requests and prosecutions, including forwarding grand‑jury submissions where required by the Code ^[1].

3. Precedents in Utah: what the record shows and what it does not

Publicly available Utah court guidance and the statutory text describe the appointment framework but the assembled reporting and state resource excerpts here do not document a list of concrete, named Utah cases in which a county attorney’s office was disqualified and a special prosecutor was appointed under that exact provision; the Utah Courts’ press materials reference that such appointments can occur under U.C.A., but they do not itself catalogue historical precedents in the excerpts provided ^{[2] [1]}. Absent additional case citations or news reports in the provided material, it is not possible to authoritatively list prior Utah instances, the political contexts that produced them, or how judges exercised appointment discretion—an evidentiary gap the record requires acknowledging ^[2].

4. Comparison and implicit tensions: state statute vs. federal special‑counsel models

The Utah mechanism is a state‑court, judge‑driven appointment tied to grand‑jury practice and local reimbursement rules; by contrast, federal practice uses the Department of Justice special counsel regulation and separate statutory history to handle conflicts and “extraordinary circumstances,” with appointment by the Attorney General and different selection standards and oversight ^{[4] [5] [6]}. That contrast matters because political actors often invoke the term “special prosecutor” while expecting federal‑style independence; Utah’s statute embeds the remedy within state judicial supervision and local fiscal consequences, which can influence perceived independence and the politics of appointment—an implicit agenda point visible when parties call for special prosecutors without specifying the legal forum or funding ^{[1] [2]}.

5. What this means in practice and next steps for verification

Practically, if disqualification occurs in Utah County, stakeholders should expect a supervising judge to step in and appoint a special prosecutor under Title 77, Chapter 10A, with the county (or supporting governmental entity) ultimately responsible for reimbursing costs as laid out in the statute; to evaluate how that plays out in a particular case requires obtaining the specific written notice, the judge’s appointment order, and any local news or court filings documenting prior uses of the statute, because the provided sources do not supply a roster of Utah precedents or detailed judicial practice examples ^{[1] [2]}. For anyone tracking a specific disqualification story, the missing pieces to obtain are the court order invoking Chapter 10A, the identity of the appointed special prosecutor, and any related county reimbursement records, none of which are present in the sources compiled here ^{[1] [2]}.