Bruce Sterling Jenkins

Bruce Jenkins
Senior Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Utah
Incumbent
Assumed office September 30, 1994
Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Utah
In office 1984–1993
Preceded by	Aldon Junior Anderson
Succeeded by	David Keith Winder
Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Utah
In office September 22, 1978 – September 30, 1994
Appointed by	Jimmy Carter
Preceded by	Willis William Ritter
Succeeded by	Tena Campbell
Personal details
Born	(1927-05-27) May 27, 1927 Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.
Alma mater	University of Utah University of Utah College of Law

Bruce Sterling Jenkins (born May 27, 1927)^[1] is a United States federal judge.

Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Jenkins was in the United States Navy from 1945 to 1946, and then received a B.A. from the University of Utah in 1949 and an J.D. from the University of Utah College of Law in 1952. He was in private practice in Salt Lake City, Utah from 1952 to 1965. He was an assistant state attorney general of Utah in 1952, and a deputy county attorney of Salt Lake County, Utah from 1954 to 1958. He was a member of the Utah State Senate from 1959 to 1965.

In 1965, Jenkins became a Referee in Bankruptcy for the District of Utah, and from 1973 to 1978 he was a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for that district.

On August 28, 1978, Jenkins was nominated by President Jimmy Carter to a seat on the United States District Court for the District of Utah vacated by Willis W. Ritter. Jenkins was confirmed by the United States Senate on September 20, 1978, and received his commission on September 22, 1978. He served as chief judge from 1984 to 1993, and also taught as an adjunct professor, University of Utah from 1987 to 1988. He assumed senior status on September 30, 1994.

In 2014 and 2015, Judge Jenkins issued rulings in favor of the City of Myton, Utah, in a long-running dispute between the State of Utah and some of its municipalities, on the one hand, and the Ute Indian Tribe, on the other, regarding jurisdiction to prosecute crimes committed on land within the Tribe’s reservation. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reversed both of those rulings, and in August 2016, in the Tribe’s appeal from the second of those rulings, the Court of Appeals directed the district court to enter a judgment “promptly” in the Tribe’s favor. The Court of Appeals noted that Judge Jenkins had “twice failed to enforce this court’s mandate … and has given us little reason to hope that things might change on remand or that this long lingering dispute will soon find the finality it requires.” The Court said that these facts presented “extreme circumstances” that justified an order requiring the case to be assigned to a different judge on remand. Ute Indian Tribe v. Myton, ___ F.3d ___, No. 15-4080, http://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/15/15-4080.pdf (10th Cir. 2016).

Sources

• Bruce Sterling Jenkins at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.