voters deceived by judicial performance reviews

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.

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