Not something you see every day

The Utah Court of Appeals today decided a case involving a challenge by the Moab Citizens Alliance to a decision by the Grand County Council to annex state school trust lands into a water improvement district to facilitate construction of a resort complex. Critics complain the resort will result in the "Aspenization" of Moab. The district court dismissed the suit, and the appellate court today affirmed.

But perhaps what is most remarkable about the Court of Appeals opinion is this footnote:

This is one of the last opinions to have been acted upon by our colleague, Judge Norman H. Jackson. Judge Jackson was one of seven original appointees to the Utah Court of Appeals. He retires after over eighteen years of dedicated service to the court. His judicial tenure followed a distinguished career as a lawyer in Richfield, most recently with the firm of Jackson, McIff & Mower.

While on the court, Judge Jackson made a specialty of standards of review. His published treatments of this important topic were of inestimable help to the appellate bar of this state. . . . We will miss him as a colleague, but we look forward to his continued friendship and sincerely wish him good health and much happiness in the years ahead.

Why didn't Justice Sandra Day O'Connor get such a farewell in a published opinion by the Supreme Court during her last term before retiring?

Which is the better source on John Roberts?

Erik Luna, U. law professor and former visiting professor at the University of Havana Law School


Michael Young, president of the University of Utah and fellow Rehnquist clerk alumnus

Finally, a good source

I was pleasantly surprised this morning to see that the Deseret Morning News came up with a University of Utah lawyer other than Erik Luna to quote in a story about Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts.

I don't know Luna personally, and I'm sure he's a nice guy, but I get tired of seeing him quoted by the two Salt Lake daily newspapers in virtually every story related to law. This morning's D-News story, "U.'s Young knew Roberts in D.C." is good because U. President Michael Young actually knows Roberts. Meanwhile, this story in yesterday's Salt Lake Tribune quoted Luna, who apparently does not know Roberts personally.

Roberts knows D.C. Circuit history

I won't claim this was foreknowledge on my part, but yesterday afternoon I read "D.C. Circuit Has Special History Among Appeals Courts, Roberts Says." Then, just hours later, President Bush announced he was nominating the aforementioned John G. Roberts of the D.C. Circuit to a position on the Supreme Court.

The article I read recounts a visit John Roberts made earlier this year to the University of Virginia School of Law to discourse on the history of the court on which he has heard cases since 2003.

Utah at crux of reporter privilege battle?

The two major players in the current Washington D.C., controversy over disclosure of a CIA agent's identity have spent significant amounts of time in Utah, according to "Rove receives support from Utah delegation in Washington" in today's Salt Lake Tribune.

Karl Rove, White House deputy chief of staff and the alleged leaker, attended Olympus High and the University of Utah. Meanwhile, Joseph Wilson, whose wife was unmasked as a CIA agent -- the unmasking was done by Rove or Wilson himself, depending on who you listen to -- likes to ski at Powder Mountain and plans to buy a home there.

So, what are the chances that Rove and Wilson could meet in Utah to work this all out? To mediate, I would choose a team of Von Christiansen, who once prosecuted a Beaver County teenager for a ribald website, and Michael Zimmerman, former chief justice of the Utah Supreme Court. Both are in this list of Utah mediators (Zimmerman parlayed his court experience into a $350-an-hour mediation practice) provided by the state courts.

Judges and money

The Deseret Morning News delves into the finances of Utah's federal district judges this morning in "Utah's U.S. judges show wide-ranging portfolios." In my mind, what's missing from this story is all the money many of these judges gave up by leaving lucrative private law practices to ascend the bench. So we should not begrudge them having a few investments or outside income for things like teaching and pensions.