Did you vote to retain the judge who had sex with a staff member at the courthouse?
 
Well, we don’t know exactly who the judge is. But we do know it happened. It’s in the annual report from Colorado’s judicial discipline commission.
 
Here’s the paragraph from the annual report that details the facts:
 
A private censure was issued to a judge who promoted extensive drinking at a conference hotel among court staff which led to a consensual sexual relationship with a staff member that continued at the courthouse. After the intimate relationship ended, the judge and the employee had an increasingly stressful employment relationship which ultimately resulted in the employee reporting the situation to the Commission and being reassigned to different duties. The judge's conduct violated Canon Rule 1.2, creating an appearance of impropriety among court staff; Canon Rule 3.1(A), interfering with proper performance of judicial duties as a delegate to the conference; Canon Rule 3.1(C), conduct undermining the integrity of a judge at the conference; and Canon Rule 3.1(E), improper use of court facilities. The impact on the work environment was addressed by the private censure of the judge’s conduct and an order for the judge to seek counselling about his behavior.
 
In the private sector, the judge could be terminated for his conduct. But in Colorado’s judicial branch, the judge gets to keep his job and it’s all covered up because judicial discipline proceedings are confidential in Colorado.
 
We don’t know if the judge is on this year’s ballot. But no matter when the judge is up for retention, Colorado’s judicial system will keep the public from knowing what the judge did.
 
Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby sure wish they were judges in Colorado. Their fates would be so different.
 
The annual report also details on pages 13-15 other acts that were disciplined in private. Among other things, judges were privately disciplined for arbitrary rulings, inappropriate remarks to lawyers and litigants, unprofessional terminology, intemperance, and sexual harassment.
 
So you’re left to imagine what all those judges on the ballot did. Colorado sweeps the bad acts of judges under the rug.
 
You don’t know your judge. Really. You don’t.
 
Please sign our petition to support making judicial discipline proceedings public in Colorado.

Colorado's judicial branch hides so much information from you. Why? Possibly because you’re predisposed to vote to retain all those judges on the ballot. At least that’s what research shows. Most voters give judges the benefit of the doubt and vote to retain judges.
 
Unsuspecting voters think if they haven’t heard anything bad about a judge, the judge must be OK. That assumption is incorrect. You're being deceived.
 
Complaints against judges and the discipline history of judges in Colorado are hidden from voters. Even more surprising, the information is also hidden from the performance commissions that review judges.
 
Your election Blue Book is filled with reviews and recommendations about judges. The recommendations come from volunteer government “commissions on judicial performance” in the judicial branch.
 
But those commissions don’t know whether any of the judges they’re evaluating have been disciplined. The commissions don’t know how many complaints have been filed against the judges they’re evaluating. The commissions don’t know the contents of the complaints filed.
 
Why? Because unlike most states, Colorado has confidential – not public – judicial discipline proceedings.
 
We can go on and on about what the judicial performance commissions don’t know about judges.
 
Worse yet, Colorado’s state commission on judicial performance has consistently and repeatedly fought against obtaining more information about judges.
 
All of those reviews in your Blue Book about judges are the product of a system that has actively opposed giving you thorough, responsible and credible reviews.
 
The Judicial Integrity Project has sought legislation requiring the performance commissions to receive more information about judges. But the state performance commission has consistently fought those measures and persuaded gullible legislators that the performance commissions don’t need discipline information or background checks or public comment regarding judges.
 
Really.
 
And all of this is in addition to the fact that Colorado’s Open Records Act doesn’t apply to judges. At least that’s what judges ruled about 20 years ago.
 
So, there’s hardly any information about judges that is publicly available. It’s impossible to objectively review a judge when so much is hidden from view. Colorado has one of the darkest judicial branches in the country.
 
Even worse, we recently learned that the performance commissions are, yet again, violating Colorado law. In a recent Denver Post article it was revealed that the executive director of the performance commissions, Kent Wagner, supervised the performance plan of a judge.
 
Wagner is not a judge. Yet he was supervising a judge. There is no provision in Colorado law that allows a non-judge to supervise a judge.
 
Judges are supposed to independent and trustworthy. But Colorado’s judicial performance system has turned Colorado’s judicial branch into puppet theatre.
 
And if the judge doesn’t do what the performance commissions want the judge to do? The judge might get a nasty, unfavorable recommendation from the commission.
 
That’s because the commissions don’t have an articulable standard by which to determine whether a judge is a good judge or a bad judge.
 
The reviews in the Blue Book tell you a judge meets or does not meet a performance standard. But no standard exists in Colorado.
 
In 2018, a judge claimed he was unfairly targeted by a performance commission when he received an unfavorable review. Indeed, his scores showed that he was rated as one of the better judges in the state. Yet he received an unfavorable recommendation that he did not meet performance standards and was not retained. Phillip Douglass is the former judge’s name.
 
This year, another judge has claimed she’s been unfairly targeted by a performance commission. Her scores are higher than other judges who received favorable recommendations. Yet Judge Tommee Crespin received an unfavorable recommendation claiming she does not meet performance standards. She’s Hispanic and claims racial bias.
 
Because there is no articulable performance standard, her claims of bias could have merit.
 
And she’s the judge Kent Wagner was supervising.
 
Colorado’s judicial performance system is not only misleading voters, it is undermining the integrity of the judiciary.
 
But if a judge here or there receives an unfavorable recommendation, then the state commission claims the whole system works. And unsuspecting voters and legislators believe it.
 
When you vote to retain a judge in Colorado, you’re voting to retain an antiquated, dark, unethical and broken system that much too often protects bad judges at the expense of a good judge or two.
 
You don’t know your judge.
 
But because you’re predisposed to vote to retain judges, the system will continue.
 
Please sign our petition to support a more transparent judiciary, and to support a judicial performance process that is responsible, credible and trustworthy.

The Colorado Supreme Court thinks judicial retention elections are a joke. The justices know there’s no chance they’ll be voted out.
 
As this story explains, when current Chief Justice Nathan Coates retires in January, the Court will start setting a specific term length for the role of chief justice.
 
And the court has revealed the next two justices to succeed Coates in the role of chief justice. The first will be Brian Boatright. The second will be Monica Marquez.
 
Both Boatright’s and Marquez’s 10-year judicial terms expire in January 2025.
 
Boatright will be in office when Coates retires in January. But, depending on the term length the justices choose for chief justice, the question should be whether Marquez will be in office when she is to succeed Boatright.
 
The chief justice has been a role held until the justice retires. So, it’s usually been held for many years. Unless the justices select a term that is 4 years or less, it should be questionable whether Marquez is still on the court when it’s her turn to be the chief administrative judge of Colorado’s judicial branch.
 
But the justices obviously aren’t concerned in the slightest that Marquez will still be on the Court when it’s her turn.
 
Why would they be concerned? No appellate court judge has ever lost a retention election in Colorado.
 
Colorado is the only state where a separate judicial performance commission reviews appellate court judges. That means that the district performance commissions – the local commissions – don’t review Colorado’s Supreme Court or Court of Appeals judges.
 
The state commission on judicial performance makes it look like the district commissions review the appellate judges, but the district commissions do not do so.
 
With an insular commission reviewing them – a commission that’s never given an appellate court judge an unfavorable recommendation – the justices on Colorado’s Supreme Court have nothing to worry about.
 
And with all the controversy at the U.S. Supreme Court at present, we should note that when Coates is replaced in January, a Democrat governor will have selected all of Colorado’s Supreme Court justices.