Salt Lake City – David Yocom prosecuted hundreds of criminal cases, winning a kidnapping conviction against Ted Bundy before the man was revealed to be an infamous serial killer. Yocom won a capital murder conviction of Ervil LeBaron, who ordered assassinations of rival polygamist figures.
He had his share of losses too, including a failed public-corruption case against a Salt Lake County mayor.
After four terms in office, Yocom can be found on golf courses around St. George, where he keeps a second residence. He retired as district attorney of the state’s largest county on Sunday.
“Anytime you had (to go against) Yocom, you knew you were going to have a knockdown, drag-out fight,” attorney Stephen McCaughey said.
Yocom grew up in the Salt Lake Valley and graduated from Granite High School in 1956. He attended Dixie College for a year, earned a business degree at the University of Utah, then a law degree from the same university in 1965.
Yocom later worked for an insurance company, teamed with two defense attorneys and worked solo.
In 1969, he began prosecuting felonies for the district attorney’s office. And during one stretch, he racked up six trial losses in a row.
“I was ready to resign, but Jay Banks wouldn’t let me,” he said of his boss. “He told me to get out there and do it again.”
Yocom credits Banks, who later became a judge, with teaching him courtroom control.
“When you walk in the courtroom, it’s your courtroom.” Yocom says. “You’re the prosecutor, you’re in charge, you’re going to do it your way, and you can’t let anybody wrestle that control away from you.”
One of Yocom’s first major decisions as county attorney was to approve a plea deal for master forger and killer Mark Hofmann.
Charged with capital murder for killing two people with homemade pipe bombs in 1985, Hofmann got life in prison.
Yocom said he was convinced a jury would not give Hofmann the death penalty because of his lack of any prior criminal record. He continues to deny the speculation that the plea was fashioned to avoid a trial that might embarrass high-ranking leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who were duped by Hofmann.
