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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Pardons board member Jesse Gallegos has withdrawn as the governor's nominee to head the Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice after telling legislators he never took the bar exam, when actually he had failed it.
"It's something I forgot doing," Gallegos said Wednesday. "It's something that people find hard to believe, but that's what happened."
Gallegos, who graduated from the University of Utah law school, said he has never claimed to be a member of the state bar.
Biographical information provided by the governor's office when his appointment was announced in May said only that he had a law degree.
Membership in the bar is not required to fill the commission post, but the question of why he had not gone on to become an attorney was raised during Gallegos' confirmation hearing June 20 before a state Senate confirmation committee.
Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, asked Gallegos about the matter and Gallegos repeatedly said that he never took the bar exam "just because I have never wanted to practice the law."
"That raised a red flag," because Gallegos' biography stated that he "moved into the legal arena," Buttars said.
Gallegos said he was just a law clerk, which did not satisfy Buttars. He moved to postpone the decision on the nomination and the panel agreed to delay it until July.
Gallegos said that the next day, he called the state bar and asked if he had taken the test. He had.
"I forgot that I took the bar exam and failed it," Gallegos said.
He did not take the bar until 1993, when he was working for the Department of Corrections as a law clerk.
After meeting with the governor's office, he withdrew.
"The Senate needs to be engaged with people they can trust," Gallegos said. "Because of that misstatement, I thought it would be in the best interest of all if I just withdraw my name."
Gov. Jon Huntsman's spokesman, Mike Mower, said Gallegos is expected to continue as a member of the Board of Pardons and Parole until his term expires in February 2008.
Gallegos had been named to replace Michele Christiansen as head of the commission. Christiansen has taken over as Huntsman's general counsel, replacing Mike Lee, who left to serve as a clerk on the U.S. Supreme Court.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
