District of Utah / Appointed 1978 / Served to 2023

Bruce Sterling Jenkins

Judge, U.S. District Court for the District of Utah

Appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1978 and confirmed by voice vote, Bruce Sterling Jenkins was a Judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah. He earned a law degree from University of Utah College of Law (now S.J. Quinney College of Law) in 1952. Rulings & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived
1927–2023
Appointed by
Jimmy Carter, 1978
Confirmed
by voice vote
Education
University of Utah 1949 · University of Utah College of Law (now S.J. Quinney College of Law) 1952
Succeeded by
Tena Campbell

Federal judicial service

YearCourtAppointed byVote
1978District of UtahCarter (D)Voice vote

Party letters show the appointing president’s party, not the judge’s own. A voice vote means the chamber approved aloud. No senator-by-senator tally is recorded.

Confirmation vote

Voice vote

The Senate approved this confirmation aloud, with no senator-by-senator tally recorded. Recorded roll-call votes begin in 1989.

Education

Judicial Record

Caseload & case types

In our data, Jenkins was assigned 3,363 district-court cases (1970–2023). Median time from filing to termination: 279 days across 3,362 closed cases.

Contract19%
Civil rights14%
Personal-injury torts11%
Other federal statutes10%
Prisoner & habeas10%
Intellectual property7%
Other28%

Case assignment is from CourtListener’s PACER-derived docket records: a partial sample, not a complete caseload, reflecting the judge last assigned each case. How we count.

On appeal

Of 127 of Jenkins’s decisions reviewed on the merits by the U.S. courts of appeals in our data, 95 were affirmed, 21 reversed or vacated, and 11 affirmed in part and reversed in part. This is a historical count of appellate outcomes for cases we could match, not a judgment of the judge, and not a complete record. How we count.

In our data, Jenkins authored 99 published opinions for the court (1979–2009). Most cited: By-Rite Distributing, Inc. v. Brierley (In Re By-Rite Distributing, Inc.) (65 citations).

A selective record from published opinions in the CourtListener corpus, not every ruling; most unpublished district orders are not included. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge.

Recent & notable rulings

Showing the 15 most-cited of 99 authored opinions in our data. “Cited” is inbound citations across the CourtListener corpus. Case links open the ruling’s full text (CourtListener) or its page here; read the methodology and verify against the primary source.

Questions & answers

Who appointed Bruce Sterling Jenkins?
President Jimmy Carter appointed Bruce Sterling Jenkins to the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah in 1978.
Was Bruce Sterling Jenkins appointed by a Democrat or a Republican?
Bruce Sterling Jenkins was appointed by President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat. JudicialFinder records the appointing president's party, not a judge's own politics.
What was Bruce Sterling Jenkins's confirmation vote?
Bruce Sterling Jenkins was confirmed by voice vote on September 20, 1978. No senator-by-senator tally was recorded.
Which court was Bruce Sterling Jenkins on?
Bruce Sterling Jenkins was a Judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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45 years on the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah. Data as of 2026-08-10. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).