SALT LAKE CITY—A Judicial Nominating Commission has selected two attorneys with Sanpete County ties, two others from Richfield and one from Kane County as finalists to replace 6th District Judge Wallace Lee, who is scheduled to retire April 1.
Public comments on the nominees are due by noon on Friday. They can be emailed to judicialvacancies@utah.gov or mailed to the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice (CCJJ), P.O. Box 142330, Salt Lake City, Utah 84114-2330.
According to a press release from CCJJ, the nominating commission may request further information or do further investigation of candidates based on public comments.
The nominees are:
Kevin Daniels, Sanpete County attorney. Daniels got his bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Utah and his law degree from the University of Wyoming.
While at the University of Utah, he did an internship in the office of then Gov. Jon Huntsman. Following the internship, he worked for two years in the Utah Office of Management and Budget.
Following that job, he went to law school and ended up as editor of the Wyoming Law Review. He was hired as deputy county attorney in 2013. He was appointed interim county attorney in January 2018 after the former county attorney, Brody Keisel, was appointed as a judge, and was elected as county attorney in November 2018.
Mandy Larsen, deputy county attorney in Sevier County. Larsen received her bachelor’s degree in political science from Southern Utah University in 2000 and a law degree from BYU in 2003.
From 2004 to 2008, she was in private practice with two law firms in Utah County. Since then, she has mixed private practice with part-time work in the Sevier County Attorney’s Office, where her job has included prosecuting juvenile cases.
Michael C. Mathie, corporate attorney in Richfield. Mathie received his associate degree from Snow College in 2001 and his bachelor’s degree in business administration from Utah State University in 2006. He graduated from the University of Idaho College of Law in 2009.
He was in private practice in Richfield with a firm known as Mathie and Peterson from 2009 to 2014. From 2014 to September 2021, he was the managing attorney for the Utah Office of Guardian ad litem. Since then, he has been associate general counsel for TaxHawk, a publisher of tax preparation software.
Mark McIff, justice court judge in Sanpete, Sevier and Piute counties. McIff is a justice court judge in Sevier and Piute counties. He also presides over all of the municipal justice courts in Sanpete County, including courts in Fairview, Mt. Pleasant, Spring City, Moroni, Fountain Green, Ephraim, Manti and Gunnison. He is also the judge for the Salina justice court.
McIff, who lives in Richfield, received his bachelor’s degree in accounting from Southern Utah University and his law degree from Gonzaga University in Spokane.
Before becoming a justice court judge, he served as part-time Piute County attorney, part-time Wayne County attorney, and part-time deputy county attorney in Sevier County.
Robert Van Dyke, county attorney in Kane County. Van Dyke graduated from Utah State University with a bachelor’s in international relations in 2005. He received his law degree from the University of Utah in 2009.
While in law school, he was an intern at the Rocky Mountain Innocence Center, an operation that investigates claims of innocence by people convicted of crimes. He was also an intern for 10 months in the Salt Lake City Prosecutor’s Office.
From 2010-2014, he was deputy county attorney in Kane County. He has been county attorney since 2014.
Since 2012, he has been chairman of the Kane Community Coalition, a group that focuses on prevention of substance abuse and suicide. He has also been president of a youth soccer league in Kane County.