Utah Supreme Court

The Utah Supreme Court is the highest court of the U.S. state of Utah and has final authority to interpret the Utah Constitution. It sits with seven members: a chief justice, an associate chief justice and five other justices. The governor appoints every justice with confirmation by the Utah Senate, and the governor also names the chief justice, while the associate chief justice is chosen by a majority vote of the justices themselves. The court descends from the three-member supreme court written into the constitution of the provisional State of Deseret. An 1850 act of Congress turned that body into a territorial supreme court with wider jurisdiction, and when Utah became a state on January 4, 1896 a new state supreme court replaced the territorial one. Since 1998 the court has met in the Scott M. Matheson Courthouse, having earlier sat in the Utah State Capitol. In 2026 the legislature enlarged the court from five to seven justices, a change its critics described as court packing and the Utah State Bar opposed.