A candidate for Utah Attorney General, Scott Burns is seeking appointment by Governor Gary Herbert to replace former Utah Attorney General John Swallow, who resigned December 3. This is the sixth in a series of brief profiles on those who have filed to run for one of three Republican nominations to Governor Gary Herbert’s for appointment the spot. As information on each individual comes out, I’ll update the profiles here.
The fifth candidate to file for the open spot as Utah Attorney General, Scott Burns has been out of Utah for just over a decade but is no stranger to Utah or to politics. He was vetted by the Obama Administration in 2010 to serve as US Attorney to Utah when Brett Tolman stepped down, and his name caused something of a tempest in the Democrats’ tea pot when Rep. Jim Matheson’s selection for the post was passed over to consider Burns instead.
Then-Executive Director of the Utah Democratic Party Todd Taylor complained, calling Burns a “lousy, horrible choice[,]” as did Democrat Claudia Wright, who bemoaned behind the scenes horse trading that had bypassed the Democratic choice.
Meanwhile, attorneys in Utah of both parties supported Burns, as did veteran Utah political manager Dave Hansen, who said that Burns was a “very capable, very competent person. … He has that valuable experience working in Washington[.]”
After losing two races for Utah Attorney General to Jan Graham in the 1990, Burns may see this as at long last his chance at the office. Could the Iron County attorney’s turn finally arrived?
[The following is excerpted from Burns’ bio on the National District Attorneys Association website]
Burns was selected by the National District Attorneys Association Board of Directors on March 21, 2009, to serve as executive director of the association. Previously, Burns was nominated twice by President George W. Bush and unanimously confirmed both times by the United States Senate. Mr. Burns served from 2002 to 2009 first as the deputy director for State, Local and Tribal Affairs, White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, and later as the deputy director of the entire agency.
As the deputy director of National Drug Control Policy, Mr. Burns was responsible for coordination and implementation of the President’s National Drug Control Strategy.
Mr. Burns was also appointed by the White House to serve as the United States representative to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), an international organization charged with eliminating doping and drug use in sport. In his role as the U.S. sports minister, Mr. Burns was subsequently chosen to represent the 40-nation Americas region on WADA’s Executive Committee and further honored by his selection to chair the 180-nations’ Ministers of Sport Conference in Athens, Greece. He was selected to chair the Independent Observers Team at the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Prior to his confirmation, Mr. Burns served for 16 years as the elected county attorney and chief prosecutor in Iron County, Utah. As an adjunct professor, Mr. Burns taught constitutional law, search and seizure, race relations, and the civil liability of peace officers.
Mr. Burns attended college in Cedar City, Utah where he was inducted into the Southern Utah University Sports Hall of Fame (football), and law school in San Diego, California.
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Scott Burns comes from a very good family. He is someone my family has known for quite some time (my father even coached his little league basketball team). I have a concern with his position on minimum mandatory sentencing.
From one of his recent addresses:
“Prosecutors have many tools to choose from in doing their part to drive down crime and keep communities safe and one of those important tools has been mandatory minimum sentences. While Federal mandatory minimum sentences sometimes result in outcomes that seem harsh, the vast majority of those cases are the result of a defendant that rejected plea negotiations, went to trial, and then received the sentence he or she said would be mandatory if convicted by a jury or judge. In addition, mandatory sentences have been extremely helpful to state and local prosecutors as leverage to secure cooperation from defendants and witnesses and solve other crimes or, in a drug distribution case, “move up the chain” and prosecute those at higher levels of sophisticated trafficking organizations; it is a tool that has been used sparingly but effectively by state and local prosecutors.”
http://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/2013/09/scott-burns-from-national-district-attorneys-association-makes-the-prosecutors-case-for-mandatory-mi.html
Thanks for your input, Jeremy. Can you expand on why you don’t like his position on mandatory minimums?
Scott Burns is a good, decent man whom my family and I have known for many years. As a young 15-year old in Cedar City, circa 1967, his father Joe (a district judge at the time) saved me from having to go to prison. The Lord knows I wouldn’t be writing this letter if he wouldn’t have intervened. I say this, because I’d been molested—buttons on my shirt ripped down its front, and later held down while students urinated on my face and head in Cedar City Park. This was because I’d worn sandals to school on a warm autumn day. They chanted Moses as they carried out their acts. I also acted out afterwards by walking into Cedar City High School (on a Saturday of course) and breaking typewriters by throwing them against walls. I was a confused little boy—and still flashbacks of these attacks as a 61-year old man. My name is Lynn Richard Banaszynski, and what I am trying to say is Scott (like his father Joe) will protect Utah’s children from abuse.
I have known Scott since we were little kids, my brother Bishop Darrell Snedeger is in Richfield,Utah I have truly missed Scott all of my life,I’m glad to see him him home . He had a father I loved.