Data: Most Utah warrants approved in less than 3 minutes

Data: Most Utah warrants approved in less than 3 minutes

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah data indicates that more than half of all search warrants approved by state judges in the last year received less than three minutes of their consideration.

The Salt Lake Tribune reports that amount of time concerns civil liberties advocates and defense attorneys, who say judges may not be carefully reviewing the information before signing off on warrants.

The Libertas Institute, a libertarian-leaning Utah think tank, acquired the state data through a public records request.

According to the data, judges approved nearly 9,400 warrants during a one-year period starting in April 2017. The average time for a judge to review the warrants was about eight minutes, but nearly 60 percent were approved in less than three minutes. About 3 percent of warrants were approved in less than 30 seconds.