State v. Revuelta

2026 UT App 21
CourtCourt of Appeals of Utah
DecidedFebruary 12, 2026
DocketCase No. 20220357-CA
StatusPublished

This text of 2026 UT App 21 (State v. Revuelta) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Utah primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Revuelta, 2026 UT App 21 (Utah Ct. App. 2026).

Opinion

2026 UT App 21

THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS

STATE OF UTAH, Appellee, v. SHADIA REVUELTA, Appellant.

Opinion No. 20220357-CA Filed February 12, 2026

Second District Court, Farmington Department The Honorable Ronald G. Russell No. 191700938

Scott L Wiggins, Attorney for Appellant Derek E. Brown and Jeffrey D. Mann, Attorneys for Appellee, assisted by law student Rebecca Huber. 1

JUDGE JOHN D. LUTHY authored this Opinion, in which JUDGES GREGORY K. ORME and MICHELE M. CHRISTIANSEN FORSTER concurred.

LUTHY, Judge:

¶1 Shadia Revuelta pled guilty to two counts of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute in the presence of a child. She now appeals, asserting that the magistrate who issued the search warrant that was executed on her home erred in finding probable cause. We reject Revuelta’s argument and affirm her convictions.

1. See Utah R. Jud. Admin. 14-807 (governing law student practice in the courts of Utah). State v. Revuelta

BACKGROUND 2

¶2 Officers in the Utah County Major Crimes Task Force (the Task Force) received an anonymous complaint that Revuelta was “involved in the use and distribution of illegal narcotics.” Acting on this tip, they conducted surveillance on Revuelta’s home in North Salt Lake. The officers observed that Revuelta “didn’t leave very often” and “that she was home during times when most people were at work.” They also saw that “the residence had several surveillance cameras.” Additionally, they noted that Revuelta had two cars on her property, one with “a temporary tag” and another with a license plate from another state.

¶3 The officers also observed that the trash can on the side of Revuelta’s home was full, leading them to believe that “trash day was soon,” and they learned “that trash day was on Friday morning.” The officers arrived early that Friday morning at Revuelta’s home. They saw that the trash can was on the street, indicating that the trash inside had been “abandon[ed] for pickup,” and they “took bags from the trash can.” The officers then went to another location, emptied the bags, and found “correspondence for [Revuelta],” “a glass jar with high grade marijuana,” and “a pen used to smoke illegal substances.” When they opened the jar, it had a “strong odor of marijuana as well as a lot of marijuana shake still inside.” A field test on the “green leafy . . . shake” yielded a positive result for marijuana.

¶4 Five days after the trash pull, one of the officers (Detective) submitted an affidavit for a search warrant for Revuelta’s home. In that affidavit, Detective stated that he had received “specialized training . . . specific to controlled substances” from

2. Because Revuelta pled guilty, there was no trial. We therefore recite the facts based on the search warrant and supporting affidavit, the charging document, the preliminary hearing, the motion to suppress, and the hearing on that motion.

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the police academy’s drug abuse recognition program, including on “methods of use, sale, distribution, cultivation, manufacturing . . . , [and] identification of controlled substances.” He noted that he had just attended a week-long course conducted by the Drug Enforcement Administration on “recent drug trends.” He also recounted that he had “investigated numerous cases involving the use, packaging and paraphernalia associated with controlled substances.”

¶5 Detective explained that law enforcement had received information that Revuelta was “involved in the use and distribution of illegal controlled substances.” He outlined the findings from the surveillance and trash pull at Revuelta’s home as described above. He further indicated that Revuelta being home when most people are at work is a pattern “common with persons involved in the drug culture as they often don’t have jobs other [than] selling illegal substances and are only gone short periods of time.” Detective stated that the use of surveillance cameras is “common with drug distributors,” who use them “to keep constant watch . . . so they don’t get robbed.” Detective also indicated that it is “common for people involved in the drug culture to have vehicles with out-of-state plates as well as temporary tags” so they cannot be “easily tracked by law enforcement.”

¶6 A magistrate approved the requested warrant the same day the affidavit was submitted. Nine days later, Detective and other members of the Task Force executed the warrant. During the resulting search, the Task Force found Revuelta counting cash on her bed. Her four-year-old son “was located in his bedroom inside the residence,” and her infant daughter was “in a bedroom in her crib.” The Task Force also found more than $8,500 in cash, a book containing names and debts, more than ten pounds of methamphetamine, drug paraphernalia and packaging, a sawed- off shotgun, and a substantial amount of marijuana, cocaine, and heroin.

20220357-CA 3 2026 UT App 21 State v. Revuelta

¶7 Revuelta was charged with two counts of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute; two counts of endangerment of a child; five counts of possession or use of a controlled substance; one count of possession of drug paraphernalia; and one count of purchase, transfer, possession or use of a firearm by a restricted person. At her arraignment, she pled not guilty to each of these charges.

¶8 Subsequently, Revuelta moved to suppress the evidence obtained during the search. She argued that “the warrant was not supported by probable cause”—in part because the information in the affidavit was stale—and that “the officers who executed the warrant did not have a good faith belief that there was probable cause.” The State contended otherwise. Following oral argument, the district court denied Revuelta’s motion to suppress.

¶9 The court determined that the items found in Revuelta’s trash, “along with the officers’ additional observations, supported a finding of probable cause and justified the search warrant.” The court also determined that the information in the affidavit was not stale. Finally, the court concluded that even if the information in the affidavit did not provide probable cause, the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule set forth in United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984), would apply and preclude suppression of the evidence obtained during the search.

¶10 After the court denied Revuelta’s motion to suppress, she entered a conditional guilty plea to two counts of possession of a controlled substance with the intent to distribute in the presence of a child. As part of her plea agreement, she reserved the right to appeal the denial of her motion to suppress. Revuelta now exercises that right and appeals.

ISSUE AND STANDARDS OF REVIEW

¶11 On appeal, Revuelta asserts that the magistrate erred in determining that the affidavit provided probable cause to issue

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the search warrant and, therefore, that the district court erred in denying her motion to suppress. “We review a denial of a motion to suppress as a mixed question of law and fact and will disturb the district court’s factual findings only when they are clearly erroneous, but we afford no deference to the district court’s application of law to the underlying factual findings.” State v. Hansen, 2025 UT App 121, ¶ 25, 576 P.3d 1160 (cleaned up). Additionally,

where a search warrant supported by an affidavit is challenged as having been issued without an adequate showing of probable cause, our review focuses on the magistrate’s probable cause determination.

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Bluebook (online)
2026 UT App 21, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-revuelta-utahctapp-2026.