em>Memorable “Firsts” of the Court
by Presiding Judge Russell W. Bench
By virtue of the Chief Justice’s decision to swear us in individually and alphabetically, I became the very first member of the Utah Court of Appeals (albeit by only a few minutes). The swearing-in ceremony was conducted in the rotunda of the State Capitol on Saturday January 17, 1987. The following Monday, Judge Norman Jackson and I went to work as court of appeals judges, and the others joined us a couple of weeks later. Judge Jackson and I held the first hearing of the Utah Court of Appeals even before our doors were officially opened. The hearing addressed a criminal defendant’s request for release on a certificate of probable cause while his appeal was pending. Because construction of our courtroom in the Mid-Town Office Plaza was not yet completed, we had to hold the hearing downstairs in a conference room of the Court Administrator’s Office.
It was a unique and exciting experience to be a part of setting up a brand new organization. The judges of the new court had to make many, many organizational decisions. One of our first orders of business was to select our leadership and to fill other staffing needs. Because of his ingratiating personality and long tenure on the juvenile court, we elected Judge Regnal Garff to serve as our first presiding judge. Judge Richard Davidson was designated associate presiding judge. And we selected Judge Gregory Orme as our first representative on the Judicial Council, based largely on his campaign claim of being more of a Senator than a CEO!
Tim Shea was our first clerk of court. Tim had been working in the administrative office, helping to set up the court long before the judges were even named. Clark Nielsen, then an experienced central staff attorney with the Utah Supreme Court, agreed to move over to our office. We hired Karen Thompson away from a law firm to fill our other central staff position. Karen is still with us today, as is Kathy Vass, one of our original secretaries. Initially, each judge had just one law clerk. The law clerks hired that first year included Kyle Latimer, Jodi Sutton, Ken Updegrove, Linda Barclay, Karin Hobbs, Annina Mitchell, and Beverly Farr.
I am personally grateful for the contributions of our “first” employees, and those who followed. We’ve worked hard and had a lot of fun, as we’ve tried to establish the Utah Court of Appeals as a respected institution.