Oaks’ change of venue
Dallin H. Oaks may have given up his shot at sitting on the nation’s highest bench in 1984, when he left as a Utah Supreme Court justice to become an apostle.
“If he had wanted it, he could have been appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, a position seen as a steppingstone to becoming a member of the U.S. Supreme Court,” biographer Richard Turley, told interviewer Kurt Manwaring. “His name ended up on lists of potential Supreme Court appointees. He let his friend Antonin Scalia take one such opportunity that might have been his, and Scalia was later appointed to the Supreme Court.”