They don’t make them like Bruce Jenkins anymore.

Jenkins, who was a U.S. District judge in Utah for more than 50 years, was remembered in the legal community as a unique jurist who could handle complex cases while also delivering justice with humanity.

Jenkins, who died Tuesday in Salt Lake City at 96, heard a litany of famous Utah cases, including Downwinders’ cancer claims from 1950s nuclear bomb testing in Nevada, the polygamous Singer-Swapp clan who killed a Utah corrections officer in 1988 and Joseph Paul Franklin, a white supremacist who shot and killed two black men jogging with two white women in Liberty Park in 1980.

Those who worked with him and argued before him remembered a sharp mind that went to what he believed to be right as opposed to a strict adherence to protocol.

“Some of the procedures he used weren’t specifically articulated in the rules,” recalled University of Utah law professor and former U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell, who was on the bench with Jenkins for several years. “Everyone was on their toes because he would be moving the case toward resolution by nudges and prodding rather than by draconian rules and pounding the gavel.”

Cassell said Jenkins, “in addition to being a wonderful human being,” craftily handled the most complex federal cases, the Downwinders case being one example. “Judge Jenkins was renowned not only here in Utah but around the country for his ability to take vast, sprawling cases and break them up into manageable pieces.”

Often, those smaller pieces could be negotiated by the parties, which Jenkins always encouraged, Cassell said.

Longtime defense attorney James Bradshaw said Jenkins “was a guy who did what he wanted to do” in the name of justice. “He was truly a colorful character. The legal landscape has become sterile. There aren’t a lot of guys like him around now.”

Stewart Walz, who prosecuted many cases before Jenkins as a longtime assistant U.S. Attorney, remembers a judge who put prosecutors to the test. “I was the object of his wrath once, and I probably deserved it.

“He was hard on prosecutors,” said Walz. “I guess it was part of his philosophy. He really wanted to put the government to proof.”

Ken Brown, Bradshaw’s partner and also a defense attorney, said Jenkins was “an exceptionally decent human being,” and he appreciated that the judge “gave defendants a good shot. He was willing to hear what we had to say.”

A state legislative career, too

One of the most remarkable aspects of Jenkins’ long judicial career is that it came after a successful political run. After graduating from University of Utah Law School, he worked briefly as a prosecutor for Salt Lake County and the Utah Attorney General’s office before going into private practice.

While in private practice, he was appointed in 1959 to the Utah Senate to fill a vacancy. A Democrat, he was effective enough as a politician that he was re-elected twice and became Senate president.

But he quit the Senate to take a job as a “referee” in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, his first step into the federal judiciary. After a reorganization of the courts he became a judge, and in 1978 he was nominated by President Jimmy Carter to become a U.S. District judge for Utah, a job he held until he died.

Patrice Arent, a former Democratic state representative and senator, clerked for Jenkins when she was fresh from the U. law school in 1981, and they stayed close ever since.

“He was the best public servant I ever met,” said Arent.

“We had many conversations about his approach to lawmaking,” said Arent, who remembers thorough preparation and a willingness to compromise as key components of his philosophy.

Jenkins loved training his clerks, she said. “He had an amazing mind. He was always very well prepared for every argument, and he expected us to be equally prepared.”

She said she last met with Jenkins in April, and, in his mid 90s, he was still working 70 cases as a senior U.S. District Judge.

That sounded about right to Walz. “Being a federal judge was his reason for living. I knew he wouldn’t quit.”

Jenkins is survived by his wife, Peggy, and children. A funeral service is planned Monday, Nov. 13 at 1 p.m. at Wasatch Lawn Mortuary, 3401 S. Highland Dr., in Millcreek.