Posted by
NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Saturday, November 25, 2006 3:28:07 PM
I have spoken highly of former Colorado Justice Rebecca Love Kourlis Institute's new study. Now for some nitpicking. The study is Shared Expectations: Judicial Accountability in Context, and her institute is the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System.
Quoting from the section on Judicial Performance Evaluations (Toward a Model of Measurement), page 87, the study says:
Finally, the public should remain invited to comment on any judge’s performance, either through hearings or in written form. However, the committee should be careful to investigate any charges or compliments coming from members of the public, to confirm their validity. The experience in Arizona, Colorado and elsewhere suggests that those who attend public hearings more often have come to bury a judge than praise him. While truthful comments are informative, the committee should consider whether they are really representative of the judge’s performance.
It is true that I went to the retention commission to bury, rather than praise my judge. Some people are only handed a shovel by the system. My judge provided me with a bulldozer, and nothing to praise him about. When this report recommends giving committees (commissions) carte blanche to ignore public input as it does in the last sentence, it is in effect depriving the public of the right to make ANY input that inconveniently disagrees with the commission's pre-concieved view of the judge. There is no need for the commission to reconcile its view with that of the member of the public in its report to the public.
I am guessing that this paragraph closely mirrors the instructions given to the 4th Judicial District Retention Commission. The result of the last sentence was that the Commission does not appear to have felt any obligation to include information about serious, well documented conduct that appeared to violate not one, but three separate sections of the Colorado Code of Judicial Conduct.
Instead of promoting judicial accountability by taking public input seriously, the last sentence eliminates the need for any accoutability to the public on the part of retention commissions. I think it is a serious mistake.
Puff.