The push to expand the Utah Supreme Court has gotten all the ink, but Republican Sen. Todd Weiler wants more attention on the lower courts.
Everyday Utahns are unlikely to come into contact with the state supreme court except in big or often historic cases. Face time with district courts, juvenile courts and the Court of Appeals is a far more realistic experience for most. These courts handle everyday issues such as car accidents, neighbor disputes and Class A misdemeanors.
Right now, the system is overloaded. The backlog of cases is close to 10,000 at the district court level, according to the Utah Judicial Council’s 2025 annual report. And the average district court judge caseload is at 109%, with some around 130%.
Weiler’s proposal, SB57, has some support from Democrat Sen. Stephanie Pitcher. She’s an attorney herself and said she had clients “waiting over a year to get a jury trial because our district courts are just so backlogged.”
Weiler wants to allocate seven more judges to the district courts and one more judge each to the juvenile and appeals courts. It's a simple mathematical approach to alleviating some of the strain. More judges equals smaller caseloads equals faster case times.
According to Pam Vickrey, executive director of the Utah Juvenile Defender Attorneys, reducing caseloads in the juvenile courts is a benefit, but the real gain is a psychological one for the minors currently in the system.
“We're showing and introducing a young person to our legal system and why it's important, and why following the rules are important, and why respect of the law is important,” she said, “and that relationship between a young person and a judge is really important in helping young kids process and learn that lesson.”
In juvenile court, a judge's role looks different from adult court. Judges work with a minor who committed the delinquent act to help rehabilitate them rather than punish them, depending on the severity of the crime.
“Having judges have the time to interact with young people and their families, to help them solve problems, but also to build a rapport so that young people kind of buy into the system, is very important,” Vickrey said.
Giving them more time to focus on a case is how the proposed extra judge would be effective.
As far as speeding up case times, Vickrey said the ideal timeframe would be 90 days. She explained that children need to be able to make a causal connection between their offense and when they are punished.
“Any parent will tell you, make the connection between ‘You snuck out last night, here's the immediate consequence,’” she said. “What is the consequence to a young person, ‘You snuck out last night, two years later, I'm going to give you a consequence?’”
Outside of the juvenile system, judges’ dockets are just as busy. Fourth District Judge Tony Graf, who is presiding over the case of Charlie Kirk’s accused killer, Tyler Robinson, told the attorneys last December during a hearing that his own case load was 1,409 cases.
Mark Moffat, a Salt Lake defense attorney, has seen firsthand how overrun the court system in Utah is and believes additional judges would help.
“I can tell you as a practitioner who has practiced in most of the courts in this state, that the dockets of many of the jurisdictions in this state, many of the districts are overwhelming,” he said.
Courts work hard to accommodate trial dates, he said, but the number of cases can overwhelm calendars. Cases can end up stacked five or more on a particular date, at the same time, and a judge must prioritise the order, starting with the defendant in custody.
“The trial calendar itself, I think, speaks to the need for additional district court resources,” he said.
A different bill to expand the Utah Supreme Court was recently changed to add three more lower court judges in the state’s Third, Fourth and Fifth districts, though this change still neglects the juvenile courts. Weiler’s separate bill, focused on the lower courts, is yet to be heard in committee.
