State v. Hatch

2025 UT App 132

THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS

STATE OF UTAH,
Appellee,
v.
RYAN SCOTT HATCH,
Appellant.

Opinion
No. 20230324-CA
Filed August 28, 2025

Sixth District Court, Kanab Department
The Honorable Mandy Larsen
No. 211600066

Scott F. Garrett and Jessica Griffin Anderson,
Attorneys for Appellant
Derek E. Brown and Natalie M. Edmundson,
Attorneys for Appellee

JUDGE DAVID N. MORTENSEN authored this Opinion, in which
JUDGES RYAN M. HARRIS and AMY J. OLIVER concurred.

MORTENSEN, Judge:

¶1 A hunter, Alan Hamberlin, and a guide, Ryan Scott Hatch,
claimed to have shot a mule deer in Arizona—where they had a
tag to hunt—that later wandered into Utah. The duo said they
tracked the wounded deer to the spot where it died, field dressed
it, and then carried its parts back to Arizona. However, a different
hunting party reported to authorities that the deer was actually
shot in Utah. Wildlife authorities conducted an investigation,
which produced significant evidence supporting that the deer
was, in fact, shot in Utah. Hatch was thereafter charged with and
convicted of assisting in wanton destruction of protected wildlife.
State v. Hatch

On appeal, he asserts several claims of ineffective assistance of
counsel. We reject his claims and affirm his conviction. 1

BACKGROUND

¶2 Hamberlin had a mule deer tag for Arizona’s unit 12B near
the Utah border and set out to hunt with Hatch and other
acquaintances. Hamberlin claimed to have shot a deer in Arizona,
south of the Utah border. He said that the wounded deer then
moved northward into Utah, which made him feel obligated to
pursue it. Ultimately, Hamberlin and Hatch located the deer
where it had collapsed and died, and they proceeded to field dress
it. 2

¶3 Another group hunting in unit 12B used scopes to track a
deer several miles into Utah. Lacking Utah hunting tags, they
didn’t pursue it and observed it “bed down” in Utah. A few hours
later, some members of this group heard a single gunshot from
the north. Approximately five to fifteen minutes after the shot,
this group saw Hamberlin and Hatch near the spot in Utah where
the deer had bedded down. They then observed Hamberlin and
Hatch field dress the deer. One of the group’s members called a
tipline to report Hamberlin and Hatch to wildlife authorities,
providing GPS readings for a possible location of the deer.

1. This decision concerns Hatch’s conviction and appeal, but it is
a companion case to and shares facts with State v. Hamberlin, 2025
UT App 131, which addresses Hamberlin’s conviction and appeal.
A more fulsome recitation of the facts and procedural history can
be found in Hamberlin.

2. Field dressing refers to the process of removing the internal
organs at the site of the kill to preserve the meat and other
valuable parts of the animal. See Center for Biological Diversity v.
United States Forest Service, 80 F.4th 943, 947 (9th Cir. 2023).

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State v. Hatch

¶4 Following the report, wildlife officers from both Arizona
and Utah launched an investigation, leading to the discovery of a
headless, skinned, and quartered deer carcass in Utah, just over a
mile from the border. Tracks from Hamberlin, Hatch, and the deer
were found around it, and DNA samples were collected. Other
officers—who did not yet know that the carcass had been
discovered—questioned Hatch and Hamberlin at their Arizona
campsite about a deer one of them had shot. They denied that the
deer had been shot in Utah but made no mention of it running
across the border. Officers took a tooth sample from the deer
head, and later testing revealed that it matched the DNA from the
carcass. After they learned the carcass was found in Utah, officers
returned to the camp to seize boots and deer parts from Hatch and
Hamberlin, only to find that Hatch had already left with the deer
parts. When he was pulled over shortly after, he avoided
questions about the location of the deer parts and where the deer
was shot. While Hatch’s boots were seized, the deer parts and
Hatch’s cellphone were not recovered.

¶5 Further investigation of the carcass revealed bullet
fragments in the deer and a premortem heart injury. One
investigating officer photographed the heart but did not preserve
it. Officers located the “kick-out” spot in Utah, where there was a
“half-moon shape” in the sand showing where the deer kicked-
out the sand when it was shot. They also found a suspected
location in Utah from which the shot had been fired, which
showed signs of kneeling or sitting and that a bipod or tripod had
been used in the area. After being shot, the deer had run 117 yards
to where its carcass was ultimately found. Boot prints matching
Hamberlin’s and Hatch’s footwear were found at the carcass
location and converged with the deer’s tracks at the kick-out spot.
The deer tracks were entirely within Utah, with no tracks found
coming from Arizona. Officers also followed Hatch’s and
Hamberlin’s boot prints from the carcass location to a road in
Arizona. Based on this evidence, Hatch was charged with aiding
or assisting in wanton destruction of protected wildlife and
obstruction of justice.

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State v. Hatch

¶6 At the parties’ joint trial, the State presented testimony
from members of the other hunting group and wildlife officers.
These witnesses, many of whom were experienced hunters and
guides, testified about how deer behave after being shot. They
generally agreed that a deer with heart or gut damage would not
typically run a mile or more after being shot. One investigating
officer, who had expertise in ballistics, specifically testified that
the wound to the heart that he observed would not have allowed
the deer to travel over a mile. These witnesses also consistently
emphasized that if a deer leaves the hunting boundary after being
shot, the proper procedure is to contact state wildlife officers.

¶7 Hamberlin testified that he shot the deer approximately
300 yards inside Arizona but it subsequently ran north into Utah.
He said that he and Hatch tracked the wounded animal and,
while being uneasy about its proximity to the Utah border, they
were unable to call and notify wildlife authorities due to a lack of
a phone signal. Hatch did not testify.

¶8 The State had conceded that the jury should not return a
guilty verdict on the obstruction of justice charge because the facts
supporting it all occurred in Arizona. Accordingly, Hatch was
acquitted on that charge, but he was convicted of assisting in
wanton destruction of protected wildlife.

ISSUE AND STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶9 Hatch appeals, raising three claims of ineffective
assistance. A claim of ineffective assistance raised for the first time
on appeal presents a question of law. State v. King, 2024 UT App
151, ¶ 14, 559 P.3d 96.

ANALYSIS

¶10 To succeed on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, a
defendant must satisfy two fundamental legal requirements:

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State v. Hatch

(1) proving that counsel’s performance was deficient and
(2) proving that this deficient performance prejudiced the
defense. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984). The
failure to establish either deficient performance or prejudice
“defeats a claim for ineffective assistance of counsel.” State v.
Cruz, 2020 UT App 157, ¶ 17, 478 P.3d 631 (cleaned up).

¶11 To show deficient performance, a defendant must
demonstrate “that counsel’s representation fell below an objective
standard of reasonableness.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688. Courts
operate with a “strong presumption that counsel’s conduct falls
within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance.” Id.
at 689. Consequently, “even if an act or omission [was]
inadvertent and not due to a purposeful strategy, relief is not
automatic.” State v. Torres-Orellana, 2021 UT App 74, ¶ 28, 493 P.3d
711 (cleaned up), aff’d, 2024 UT 46, 562 P.3d 706. The
determination of deficient performance ultimately hinges on
“whether, considering all the circumstances, counsel’s acts or
omissions were objectively unreasonable.” State v. Scott, 2020 UT
13, ¶ 36, 462 P.3d 350.

¶12 To establish prejudice, the defendant is required to
demonstrate that counsel’s deficient performance harmed the
defense. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687. This means that the “defendant
must present sufficient evidence to support a reasonable
probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result
of the proceeding would have been different.” Archuleta v. Galetka,
2011 UT 73, ¶ 40, 267 P.3d 232 (cleaned up). And the errors must
be severe enough to erode our “confidence in the outcome.”
Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694. Accordingly, when determining
prejudice, an appellate court thoroughly considers the totality of
the evidence. See Torres-Orellana, 2021 UT App 74, ¶ 29. This
assessment includes examining various factors, including
whether the errors affected the entire evidentiary picture or had
only an isolated impact and “how strongly the verdict [was]
supported by the record.” See id. (cleaned up). Courts are
generally “more readily” inclined to conclude errors are
“harmless when confronted with overwhelming evidence of the

20230324-CA 5 2025 UT App 132
State v. Hatch

defendant’s guilt.” State v. King, 2010 UT App 396, ¶ 35, 248 P.3d
984 (cleaned up). Conversely, courts are “more willing to reverse
when a conviction is based on comparatively thin evidence.” Id.

I. Preservation of Evidence

¶13 Hatch first claims that his counsel (Counsel) rendered
ineffective assistance when he allowed “the trial to proceed
without objecting to the destruction of the deer’s heart.” He
argues that the “key evidence in this case was the deer’s heart.”
And he says the “State did not preserve the heart or any of its
tissues, did not send the heart for further investigation or testing,
and did not make the heart available to the defense,” leaving it to
decompose instead. “Given these circumstances,” Hatch asserts,
“it was error for [Counsel] not to file a motion to address the
destruction of this key evidence, the impact on [his] due process
rights, and an appropriate remedy” under the principles
articulated in State v. Tiedemann, 2007 UT 49, 162 P.3d 1106. See id.
¶ 44 (“In cases where a defendant has shown a reasonable
probability that lost or destroyed evidence would be exculpatory,
we find it necessary to require consideration of the following:
(1) the reason for the destruction or loss of the evidence, including
the degree of negligence or culpability on the part of the State; and
(2) the degree of prejudice to the defendant in light of the
materiality and importance of the missing evidence in the context
of the case as a whole, including the strength of the remaining
evidence.”).

¶14 “To determine whether the State’s [loss or] destruction of
potentially exculpatory evidence violates due process, the Utah
Supreme Court has established a threshold requirement that is
followed by a balancing test.” State v. Steele, 2019 UT App 71, ¶ 15,
442 P.3d 1204 (cleaned up). First, a defendant must “establish as a
threshold matter a reasonable probability that the lost or
destroyed evidence would have been exculpatory.” State v.
DeJesus, 2017 UT 22, ¶ 19, 395 P.3d 111. “Only after the defendant
has established this point—and accordingly established that there
was a due process violation resulting from the loss of evidence—

20230324-CA 6 2025 UT App 132
State v. Hatch

should a court” move on to “balance the culpability of the State
and the prejudice to the defendant in order to gauge the
seriousness of the due process violation and to determine an
appropriate remedy.” Id. ¶¶ 27, 29.

¶15 But Hatch cannot show that Tiedemann and its progeny are
applicable here, because he has not made a threshold showing of
a reasonable probability that the deer’s heart would have been
exculpatory. See State v. Mendoza, 2025 UT App 46, ¶ 20, 568 P.3d
265 (noting that Tiedemann doesn’t apply when a defendant
“cannot meet the threshold requirement of showing a reasonable
probability that the [lost or destroyed evidence] would have been
exculpatory”), cert. denied, 570 P.3d 661 (Utah 2025).

¶16 Hatch resists the conclusion that the heart evidence would
not have been exculpatory by arguing, “based on the facts,” that
“further testing of the heart would have revealed that any alleged
damage to the heart was superficial and not immediately fatal.”
But in fact, the State never presented any evidence that the bullet
fragment entered the deer’s heart or that the heart suffered
internal damage. At best, further testing would have shown that
damage to the heart was limited to what the State’s evidence
indicated: a laceration to the side of the heart that the investigator
had observed and photographed. The State never presented
evidence that suggested damage beyond this. Given this
circumstance, we have no trouble concluding that even if the heart
had been preserved and undergone further testing, it would have
revealed nothing undercutting what the State’s investigator had
testified to. Consequently, the heart evidence that Hatch now
complains was destroyed would have, at best, simply confirmed
the evidence the State had already presented. In other words,
there would have been no point in preserving the actual heart to
prove that there was no internal damage when the State’s
investigator never asserted a bullet fragment caused internal
damage to the heart. Accordingly, this claim of ineffective
assistance fails because there was no basis for Counsel to allege a
due process violation since there was not a threshold showing that
the heart evidence would have been exculpatory. For this reason,

20230324-CA 7 2025 UT App 132
State v. Hatch

Counsel could have reasonably concluded there was no point in
asserting a Tiedemann due process violation. Accordingly, this
claim of ineffective assistance fails for lack of deficient
performance.

II. Moving for a Continuance

¶17 Hatch next argues that Counsel’s decision to not seek a
continuance in response to the allegedly late notice of the State’s
investigator as an expert witness constituted ineffective
assistance. 3 More specifically, Hatch argues that Counsel should
not have waived the right to a continuance before trial due to the
State’s untimely expert disclosure and should have sought a
continuance during trial to obtain a rebuttal expert for the
investigator’s testimony about the heart. This claim of ineffective
assistance fails on both the deficient performance and prejudice
prongs, and we address each in turn.

¶18 Counsel did not perform deficiently in failing to move for
a continuance to obtain a rebuttal expert who could opine about
the deer’s cause of death, either on notice grounds pretrial or
during trial. As our supreme court has made clear, “counsel has a
duty only to make reasonable investigations or to make a
reasonable decision that makes particular investigations
unnecessary.” Menzies v. State, 2014 UT 40, ¶ 183, 344 P.3d 581
(cleaned up), abrogated on other grounds by McCloud v. State, 2021
UT 51, 496 P.3d 179. And while “there must be a reasonable,

3. Hatch complains that proper notice was similarly not provided
for the State’s other expert witnesses and that Counsel should
have sought a continuance for these witnesses, too. But Hatch has
not developed this argument in his briefing in any meaningful
way with regard to these other expert witnesses. Accordingly, this
issue, insofar as it extends to witnesses other than the investigator,
is inadequately briefed, and we will not consider it further. See
State v. Thomas, 961 P.2d 299, 304 (Utah 1998) (“It is well
established that a reviewing court will not address arguments that
are not adequately briefed.”).

20230324-CA 8 2025 UT App 132
State v. Hatch

articulable reason for not interviewing a particular witness or for
not following a particular lead, . . . the mere fact that other
witnesses might have been available or that other testimony
might have been elicited from those who testified is not a
sufficient ground to prove ineffectiveness of counsel.” Id. (cleaned
up). Instead, in “any ineffectiveness case, a particular decision not
to investigate must be directly assessed for reasonableness in all
the circumstances, applying a heavy measure of deference to
counsel’s judgments.” Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 691
(1984).

¶19 Here, the record makes clear that Counsel investigated the
need for experts before trial. After all, Counsel retained a retired
wildlife officer with a degree in wildlife management to testify as
an expert rebuttal witness. A “fair assessment of attorney
performance requires that every effort be made to eliminate the
distorting effects of hindsight, to reconstruct the circumstances of
counsel’s challenged conduct, and to evaluate the conduct from
counsel’s perspective at the time.” Id. at 689. It is entirely within
the realm of adequate assistance for counsel “to make reasonable
investigations or to make a reasonable decision that makes
particular investigations unnecessary.” Id. at 691. This means that
even when there are “any number of hypothetical experts . . .
whose insight might possibly have been useful,” counsel is
nevertheless “entitled to formulate a strategy that was reasonable
at the time and to balance limited resources in accord with
effective trial tactics and strategies.” Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S.
86, 107 (2011).

¶20 Given the discretion to engage in reasonable trial tactics
and strategies, it was also reasonable for Counsel to avoid
transforming “the case into a battle of the experts.” Id. at 109.
Whether to choose one particular expert over another is a
quintessential strategic decision that we are loath to second-guess
with the benefit of hindsight. See State v. Houston, 2015 UT 40, ¶ 90,
353 P.3d 55 (characterizing the assertion “that appellate counsel
would have called and retained different experts than those trial
counsel decided to present to the jury” as a tactical decision);

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State v. Hatch

Brown v. State, No. 09-22-00057-CR, 2023 WL 5948365, at *3 (Tex.
App. Sept. 13, 2023) (stating that because the court could “imagine
a strategic motivation for not retaining or calling another expert,”
the defendant had “failed to overcome the presumption that this
was sound trial strategy“); Hall v. State, No. E2004-01635-CCA-R3-
PD, 2005 WL 2008176, at *32 (Tenn. Crim. App. Aug. 22, 2005)
(“Counsel’s decision not to call another expert is one of trial
strategy, and we will not second-guess that decision on appeal.”);
cf. McCloud v. State, 2021 UT 51, ¶ 38, 496 P.3d 179 (“Counsel did
not perform deficiently by not consulting experts; rather, he made
a reasonable strategic decision based on the law and facts of the
case and his theory of the defense.”).

¶21 One reasonable strategic basis for Counsel to have chosen
not to call an additional expert was to avoid the risk of the State
calling its own rebuttal experts in response. The State had, in fact,
informed the district court that it was prepared to call additional
experts: (1) an experienced heart surgeon who had “shared his
professional opinion about the many ways a laceration to the
heart would be fatal” and (2) a doctor of veterinary medicine who
worked for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. In this
scenario, Counsel would know that Hatch faced a numerical
disadvantage, with the State having more experts than Hatch.
Thus, Counsel could have reasonably wanted to steer clear of
what looked like a losing battle and avoid giving the State the
chance to present more robust testimony through these additional
experts. This demonstrates how the decision to hire a particular
expert, or to forgo one, is deeply strategic and is aimed at
managing potential risks and advantages in court—a decision on
the part of counsel that is inherently reasonable in many
circumstances, this one included.

¶22 In addition to failing to show deficient performance, Hatch
has not demonstrated how he was harmed—even if we were to
assume that Counsel’s performance fell short of reasonable
representation. Several reasons compel this conclusion.

20230324-CA 10 2025 UT App 132
State v. Hatch

¶23 First, as we noted, the State never argued that there was
internal damage to the deer’s heart. Indeed, the State’s
investigator did not claim that a bullet fragment caused such
damage. Rather, he said the bullet fragment went “through-and-
through” along the side of the heart. In fact, he specifically stated
that he had used a metal detector to determine that there were no
bullet fragments in the deer’s heart. And he testified that he
inspected the heart completely by holding it in his hands and
found no other wounds. In other words, the State never presented
evidence that the deer was shot in the heart such that it caused
any internal damage. Other expert evidence that Hatch asserts
should have been obtained would have, at best, offered additional
evidence about the damage to the heart, but the amount of
damage to the heart was never really in question.

¶24 Second, there was abundant physical evidence that the
deer was in Utah when it was shot, was shot from a point in Utah,
and died in Utah. Investigators pinpointed where the deer was
located when it was shot. From this location, they determined the
path it took to the spot where it died. Moreover, they identified
the location from where the shot was likely taken. And perhaps
most telling, all the deer’s tracks were found entirely in Utah. For
Hatch and Hamberlin’s version of events to have been believable
to the jury, there would have had to have been evidence of deer
tracks leading from Arizona into Utah. But no tracks were ever
found—in spite of the fact that they would have been readily
visible along with the tracks that were found in Utah. Hatch has
not assailed or undercut the evidentiary picture these facts
established.

¶25 In addition, the other hunting party heard the shot that
killed the deer and then saw Hamberlin and Hatch field dressing
the deer no more than fifteen minutes later. And if the deer had
been shot in Arizona, they would have needed much more than
fifteen minutes after shooting the deer to get to the location in
Utah where they began field dressing it for Hamberlin and
Hatch’s story to be credible. In short, given this abundant
evidence that the deer was never in Arizona during the events

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State v. Hatch

that resulted in its death, there is simply no likelihood of a better
result for Hatch even if he had another expert testify. That his
expert could have testified that the deer could have traveled for
some distance after sustaining such a wound to the heart would
have done nothing to overcome the weighty evidence that the
deer was in Utah throughout the episode. Consequently, any
testimony Hatch’s proposed expert could have offered would
have been inconsequential in swaying the jury to adopt Hatch and
Hamberlin’s version of events. And Hatch has not offered a
persuasive argument that the jury would have returned a more
favorable verdict had it heard additional expert testimony.

¶26 Because Hatch has failed to show either deficient
performance or prejudice, this claim of ineffective assistance of
counsel fails.

III. Objecting to Border-Crossing Testimony

¶27 Hatch’s final claim is that he received ineffective assistance
when Counsel failed to object to testimony that he and Hamberlin
crossed state lines without notifying officials because the crossing
concerned “uncharged conduct.” He argues that this testimony
constituted other-acts evidence that needed to clear the hurdles
created by rules 402, 403, and 404(b) of the Utah Rules of Evidence
before it could be admitted.

¶28 As our supreme court has stated, “evidence of prior crimes,
uncharged misconduct, or bad acts is admissible if it (1) is relevant
to, (2) a proper, non-character purpose, and (3) does not pose a
danger for unfair prejudice that substantially outweighs its
probative value.” State v. Green, 2023 UT 10, ¶ 64, 532 P.3d 930
(cleaned up). Here, there was no deficient performance because
evidence of Hamberlin and Hatch crossing the border was
admissible under the rules.

¶29 First, the conduct was obviously relevant since it
concerned the very defense that Hamberlin and Hatch were
advancing—that the deer had been shot in Arizona and traveled

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State v. Hatch

into Utah, giving rise to an ethical responsibility to pursue the
deer over the border to ensure that it did not unduly suffer or go
to waste even if they could not notify authorities. In other words,
crossing the border without notifying Utah authorities was made
relevant by the very story Hamberlin and Hatch advanced at trial.

¶30 Second, there was an obvious non-character purpose for
the State to address the fact that Hamberlin and Hatch failed to
notify wildlife officers about crossing the border. It was not to
attack Hatch’s character but to show Hamberlin’s and Hatch’s
consciousness of guilt. See State v. Haynes, 2025 UT App 75, ¶ 45,
571 P.3d 1197 (stating that “consciousness of guilt” is a “plausible
purpose[] beyond propensity” that renders evidence
“presumptively admissible” under rule 404(b)), petition for cert
filed, July 21, 2025 (No. 20250823); see also United States v. Shanshan
Du, 570 F. App’x 490, 499 (6th Cir. 2014) (stating that under federal
rule 404(b), the “testimony had an admissible non-character
purpose to show knowledge and consciousness of guilt”); People
v. Starr, No. 219364, 2001 WL 714813, at *1 (Mich. Ct. App. Mar.
16, 2001) (per curiam) (“Consciousness of guilt is a proper
noncharacter purpose under [Michigan’s rule] 404(b).”); State v.
Dean, 54 N.E.3d 80, 108 (Ohio 2015) (“[The defendant’s]
statements in these letters were probative of his consciousness of
guilt. Thus, this evidence was relevant to a noncharacter issue and
admissible under [Ohio’s rule] 404(B).”); Ary v. State, Nos. 09-19-
00244-CR & 09-19-00245-CR, 2020 WL 6472668, at *15 (Tex. App.
Nov. 4, 2020) (“Because the extraneous offense evidence had
relevance apart from character conformity, we conclude that the
trial court did not abuse its discretion in determining that the text
messages were admissible under Rule 404(b).”). The State’s case
rested on the premise that Hamberlin and Hatch shot the deer in
Utah and thus would not have done anything to arouse the
attention of Utah authorities. In other words, Hatch and
Hamberlin’s silent crossing of the border was not done because of
hunter ethics but as a surreptitious attempt to avoid detection in
pursuit of a trophy mule deer that was off-limits.

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¶31 Third, the probative value of the quiet border crossing
obviously outweighed the danger of unfair prejudice. After all,
crossing the border was essential to Hamberlin and Hatch’s
defense. They had to explain why they crossed into Utah from
Arizona without notifying authorities. If anything, this evidence
helped them because it was essential to their defense. Given this
circumstance, the evidence’s probative value obviously
outweighed the danger of prejudice, unfair or otherwise, because
Hamberlin and Hatch’s case would have fallen apart without it.

¶32 Because the evidence of the border crossing met these
requirements for admissibility, Counsel did not perform
deficiently in refraining from lodging an objection. Accordingly,
this claim of ineffective assistance fails. 4

CONCLUSION

¶33 All of Hatch’s claims of ineffective assistance of counsel
fail. There was no basis to assert a due process claim based on the
destruction of the deer’s heart because that evidence has not been
shown to be exculpatory. Counsel also reasonably declined to
move for a continuance to avoid turning the trial into a battle of
the experts. Moreover, Hatch has not demonstrated that
testimony from his proffered rebuttal expert would have been
reasonably likely to change the outcome. And the evidence about
crossing the border without notifying state officials was properly
admitted, lending no support to a claim of ineffective assistance.
Accordingly, Hatch’s conviction is affirmed.

4. Hatch also raises an issue of cumulative error. There is no error
here to accumulate. Accordingly, we need not address this issue
further.

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