Ryan D. Tenney

Ryan D. Tenney is a Judge in the Utah Court of Appeals, and is up for retention in the November 2024 Election, Utah.

Opinion

I'm leaning "no" on Ryan D. Tenney, mostly due to the fact that he was appointed by Spencer J. Cox. I could not find any controversial opinions on Tenney's part, and he is reportedly well spoken of by lawyers, but I rarely look to lawyers for solid moral and ethical guidance. Lawyers have earned their reputation for dishonesty and their usual ethical framework is not one which I think highly of. Lawyers and judges, of necessity, tend to be masters of obtuse respectability regardless of their moral character. I want to see examples of controversial decisions where a judge did something unpopular to some group, that demonstrates their commitment to sound reasoning, rule of law, and justice. Lacking that, my usual next step is to infer his orientation in this regard based on their associations or public comments. Ryan D. Tenney was appointed by Spencer J. Cox, who, by my assessment, is a corrupt politician cut from the cloth of the corrupt Gary R. Herbert. There is reason to believe that despite Cox's outward show of condemning abortion, that he is actually in favor of it, and this is borne out if we look at the actions of his judicial picks, all of whom supported a stay on Utah's abortion ban. The same can be said of Herbert's judicial picks. Absent any other persuasive data, I'm inclined to not trust a Cox appointee.

Notes

He was appointed by Spencer J. Cox on August 18, 2021 and attended law school at Brigham Young University.