The Utah demonstrators are unlikely to serve prison time, said Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill. Though they’d get at least five years if convicted as charged, criminal cases often end with a plea to lesser counts.

“I don’t think anyone is going to be going to prison on this,” he said. Gill is a generally reform-minded Democrat who said he has participated in Black Lives Matter protests himself and declined to charge dozens of protesters accused of curfew violations.

Still, he argued “there’s some people who want to engage in protest, but they want to be absolved of absolved of any behavior,” he said. “This is not about protest, this is about people who are engaging in criminal conduct.”

"Progressive prosecutors" in a nutshell. So "reform minded" that he thinks it's perfectly fine to overcharge people in order to force a plea deal.