Using judical performance evalution to promote judicial accountability

Judicature

Volumn 90, Issue 5, 2007, Pages 200-207

  Kourlis, Rebecca Love ^a   Singer, Jordan M ^a  

^a Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System   (United States)

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EID: 34249726090     PISSN: 00225800     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (22)

1. The study, entitled Shared Kxpectations: Judicial Accountability in Context, is available through the Institute's website, www.du.edu/ legalinstitute.
2. Two states, Illinois and New Mexico, require a supermajority to secure retention.
3. See "Report of the Commission to Promote Public Confidence in Judicial Elections" 38 (2004) (on file with authors), available at http://www.courts.state.ny.us/reports/Judicial-ElectionsReport.pdf (hereinafter "Feerick Commission Report") (58% of New York voters said they did not vote in judicial elections because they lacked candidate information);
4. see also Kenyon N. Griffin & Michael J. Horan, Patterns of Voting Behavior in Judicial Retention Elections for Supreme Court Justices in Wyoming, 67 JUDICATURE 68, 72 (1983) (finding a high rate of abstentions among voters who had no information on the judges facing retention).
5. See Larry Aspin et al., Thirty Years of Judicial Elections: An Update, 37 SOC. SCI. J. 1, 3 (2000); see also Susannah A. Nesmith, 16 Judge Seats Draw 35 Candidates, MIAMI HERALD, Sep. 1, 2006, at 6B (noting the electoral advantage of Hispanic, and Jewish-sounding surnames in Florida judicial elections); Marie Hojnacki & Lawrence Baum, Choosing Judicial Candidates: How Voters Explain Their Decisions, 75 JUDICATURE 300, 308-09 (1992) (noting voter reliance on low-information cues, including the gender of the candidates, in elections for associate justices of the Ohio Supreme Court in 1986 and 1988); Anthony Champagne & Greg Theilemann, Awareness of Trial Court Judges, 74 JUDICATURE 271, 271 (1991); Anthony Champagne, Tort Reform and Judicial Selection, 38 LOY. L.A. L. REV. 1483, 1492 (2005) (discussing '"party sweeps' in which popular top-of-the-ticket candidates have swept judges of the opposing party out of office and elected judges of a popular candidate's party for no other reason than that the judges shared the popular candidate's party affiliation"); Griffin & Horan, supra n. 3, at 74; Jona Goldschmidt, Selection and Retention of Judges: Is Florida's Present System Still the Rest Compromise?, 49 U. MIAMI L. REV. 1, 6 (1994).
6. See Zogby International Survey of 1,204 American voters, commissioned by Justice at Stake and conducted March 17-19, 2004, cited in Randall T. Shepard, Electing Judges and the Impact on Judicial Independence, 42-JUN TENN. B.J. 23, 25 & n.16 (2006).
7. Feerick Commission Report, supra n. 3, at 39.
8. Kevin M. Esterling and Kathleen M. Sampson, JUDICIAL RETENTION EVALUATION PROGRAMS IN FOUR STATES: A REPORT WITH RECOMMENDATIONS 39 (Chicago: American Judicature Society, 1998).
9. Id. at 40.
10. See "Iowans Concerned About Judges, 2006 Judicial Voters' Guide Questionnaire for Judicial Candidates" (on file with authors), available at http://www.iowansconcernedaboutjudges.org/doc/Survey.pdf. Similar questionnaires greeted judicial candidates in other states.
11. See, e.g., Editorial, The Judicial Survey, 155 N.J.L.J. 748 (Feb. 15, 1999) (noting that "[t]he tradition of deference may serve to conceal that information [on courtroom demeanor] from the very person who needs it most, particularly if the judge's problem is a lack of audience-sense or of the ability to put himself in the shoes of another person.").
12. Supra n. 7, at xvii.
13. American Judicature Society - Washington Chapter, Committee on Judicial Performance Standards and Evaluation, FINAL REPORT OF THE WASHINGTON STATE JUDICIAL PERFORMANCE EVALUATION PILOT PROJECT 29 (2002).
14. Darlene R. Davis, JUDICIAL EVALUATION PILOT PROJECT OF THE JUDICIAL CONFERENCE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIAL BRANCH 9 (Federal Judicial Center, 1991). The pilot project evaluated all district court, magistrate, and bankruptcy court judges in one judicial district, the Central District of Illinois. The pilot program limited its information collection to anonymous attorney survey responses in five areas of judicial performance: integrity, judicial temperament, legal ability, decisiveness, and diligence, Id. at 5. Although participation was voluntary, every judge in the district chose to participate.
15. See id. at 2.
16. Id. at 8.
17. See generally, e.g., Jacqueline R. Griffin, Judging the Judges, 21 LITIGATION 5 (1995).
18. See Penny J. White, Judging Judges: Securing Judicial Independence by Use of Judicial Performance 'Evaluations, 29 FOROHAM URB. L.J. 1053, 1076 (2002) (advocating for robust performance evaluations and noting that "Undoubtedly, much of the success of those who seek to destroy judicial independence results from the lack of available information upon which to base one's decision in judicial elections.") ;
19. Leonard Post, ABA Offers New Way to Judge the Judges, NAT'L L.J., May 5, 2005, at 4 (noting that Virginia's JPE program was spurred by Justice Barbara Milano Keenan, who faced opposition to her reappointment by the state legislature in 2003 because of a dissent she wrote in a 1995 case involving the custody of a child by a homosexual parent).
20. See, e.g., UTAH VOTER INFORMATION PAMPHLET (General Election Nov. 5, 2002) at 60 (on file with authors), available at http://elections.utah.gov/GOV_election_pamphleWEB.pdf.
21. R. P. JUD. PERF. REV. ARIZ. 6(f)(2), quoted in A. John Pelander, Judicial Performance Review in Arizona: Goals, Practical Effects and Concerns, 30 ARIZ. ST. L.J. 643, 690-93 (1998) (alteration in Pelander).
22. See, e.g., Hawaii State Bar Association, Standing Committee on Judicial Administration, Report: Regarding a Judicial Evaluation Program, 3-DEC HAW. B.J. 9, 9 (1999) (describing efforts to work with the state judiciary to implement a JPE program); Press Release, Missouri Bar Association, Judicial Evaluations Available Online to the Public (on file with author), available at http://www.showmecourts.org (noting that for the first time, the Missouri bar would be surveying jurors as part of its bar poll for the 2006 election).