New Utah Supreme Court justice signed Proposition 4 repeal petition

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Justice Michael Menssen signed a petition to repeal Utah's Proposition 4 before being appointed to the Supreme Court earlier this year.
Menssen is still hearing cases involving plaintiffs in the redistricting case.
A spokesman for the governor said he didn't know about Menssen's support for the inititiative.

SALT LAKE CITY — A new member of the Utah Supreme Court previously supported an effort to overturn the state's anti-gerrymandering initiative Proposition 4.

Despite that, Justice Michael Menssen is still hearing arguments involving that issue.

Menssen, who was appointed in August and sworn in the following month, signed a petition on Feb. 12 seeking to overturn Proposition 4, according to a public database. Menssen was not a judge at the time, and the petition was ultimately unsuccessful.

But Menssen has not recused himself from the case involving redistricting, which is the process of drawing congressional maps. He also appears not to have disclosed his support for the anti-Prop 4 effort while being interviewed for a role on the court.

"We were not aware," a spokesperson for Gov. Spencer Cox, who appointed Menssen to the Supreme Court, told KSL. "Searching initiative petition packets for a candidate's signature is not part of our merit-based review process."

Menssen has not commented. A Utah State Courts spokesperson said Wednesday that the "normal standards and procedures for recusal decisions have been considered and followed." But the spokesperson did not respond to a question about the specific reasoning behind Menssen's decision to not recuse himself from related cases given his signature on the Prop 4 repeal effort.

The courts spokesperson also did not say whether Menssen has recused himself from any other cases. According to the Supreme Court calendar, the justice has not opted out of hearing any cases scheduled for arguments from September to December of this year.

Earlier this month, Menssen took part in a hearing involving the plaintiffs in the battle over redistricting. A district court judge threw out the current maps last year and adopted a new map submitted by the plaintiffs after ruling that lawmakers violated the state Constitution when they altered Proposition 4.

Lawmakers have since added two additional seats to the Supreme Court and passed a new law creating a panel of judges to hear cases that involve potential constitutional issues. The redistricting plaintiffs have asked the state Supreme Court to throw out that law. Justices, including Menssen, are currently considering how to rule in that case.

The Utah Supreme Court Rules of Professional Practice outline when a judge should recuse himself, including "whenever the judge's impartiality might reasonably be questioned."

Alliance for a Better Utah, a progressive advocacy group, called for Menssen to recuse himself from redistricting cases.

"When a judge has personally signed on to one side of a fight, the public has every reason to question his impartiality," said Katie Matheson, the group's executive director. "This is not about whether Justice Menssen is a capable lawyer or a decent person. It is about whether Utahns can trust the outcome."

Menssen is one of two new justices recently appointed to the Supreme Court, replacing former Chief Justice Matthew Durrant, who retired, and former Justice Diana Hagen, who resigned amid allegations of misconduct. Prior to taking office, Menssen was a partner at a Salt Lake City law firm where he worked in commercial litigation, labor and employment law and appeals.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.