State Rep. Mike Kohler, a Republican from Midway, says people should be required to notify law enforcement after using force in self-defense.
He said he’s sponsoring House Bill 133 during the upcoming legislative session because he was surprised no such requirement exists.
“The fact is, since there is no law, when somebody uses either ‘stand your ground’ or self-defense as a neutralizing tool, if you will – like what happened here – this bill would require that anybody, once the danger is cleared, have a requirement to notify authorities immediately,” he said.
He said the idea for the bill came from the road rage shooting outside Jordanelle State Park in September 2024 that claimed the life of Hideout resident Patrick Hayes.
Three months later, Greg Kyle DeBoer admitted to shooting Hayes after a late-night altercation, then burying the gun near his home.
No report of the shooting was made until the next day, when a passerby saw Hayes and called 911.
“It’s not clear, but that guy possibly could have survived,” Kohler said. “Now, realizing it’s your self-defense – I get it. Don’t have any problem defending that right, either. But once danger is cleared, notifying the authorities has got to happen if this passes.”
Under the bill’s current language, a person must report use of force in order to receive a pretrial justification hearing. That’s where a judge decides whether it was fair for the person to defend themselves using force.
The bill would require a person to get in touch with law enforcement “as soon as the actor is not in imminent danger.”
Kohler said Wasatch County Sheriff Jared Rigby is supportive of the bill.
He said he has not spoken to Hayes’ family about the legislation, but he is “taking a common-sense approach” to the issue.
DeBoer was charged with obstruction of justice, but not with the shooting itself. Last January, Rigby said there was not enough evidence to support a homicide charge.
In an interview for an outside investigation into the Wasatch County Sheriff’s Office this fall, Summit County Sheriff Frank Smith said he did not understand prosecutors’ decision.
“For the life of me, I don’t know how you have a ‘stand your ground’ when the person leaves the scene, hides a gun and never comes forward,” he told the investigator.
The 2026 legislative session begins Jan. 20.
