Utah judicial selection rules change

August 1, 2010

Utah: The judicial selection and appointment process has been revised in Utah, putting most of the decision-making outside of the court system. House Bill 289, sponsored by Rep. Curt Oda, became effective on July 1, 2010 and states that all judicial applications be sent to the governor's office rather than the state's Administrative Office of the Court (AOC). The AOC used to serve as staff to the nominating commissions and would compile records of the applicants. These duties will now be taken up by the governor's office. The various nominating commissions will continue to pick five applicants to be sent to the Governor, who will appoint one to be reviewed and confirmed by the Senate.

The "biggest change" that the bill made to the system, according to Oda, was taking the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court out of the process entirely. However, the Chief Justice's role in the nominating commissions was already negligent, having been reduced to a non-voting, or "ex-officio," member years ago. Due to objections by Rick Schwermer, assistant state court administrator, and others about "all judicial perspective being taken off the nominating commissions," the bill was changed to allow the chief justice to name a judge from the district in question to sit in on the nominating commission meetings.

Reasons for the changes included the thought that the AOC had too much control over the nominating commissions and the selection process. Sen. Scott Jenkins, chair of the Senate Judicial Confirmation Committee and co-sponsor of the H.B. 289, explained: "Was there something broke? No. But it just didn't appear quite right. We thought it's better handled outside the courts. The courts shouldn't be influencing those nominations."

The AOC said it is fine with the changes. Rick Schwermer stated, "Now we have essentially no influence over the selection of judges. But we really didn't before ... Constitutionally these are decisions the Legislature can make and that's fine."