Judicial Evaluations May Be On The Way in Nevada...FINALLY...maybe!

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Prior to the Legislature seeking the Judicial Appointment Amendment to the Nevada Constitution, the Supreme Court of Nevada had its Article 6 Commission study and report on whether a Judicial Evaluation System should be implemented in Nevada. The Report was issued in May 2009.

Currently, there are only two judicial evaluations that occur in Nevada. One in Washoe county, conducted by the Washoe County Bar Association and the other conducted by the Review Journal in Clark County, with the assistance of the Clark County Bar Association. They are very general surveys and only get attorney feedback. Interestingly enough, both surverys only bring in, exactly, a 19% response from the attorneys.

According to Justice Ron Parraguirre, who is the Supreme Court's representative on the Article 6 Commission, “Voters frequently complain that they have insufficient knowledge to determine if a sitting judge is worthy of being returned to the bench.” So, the current evaluations obviously don't provide enough information for voters to make an informed decision. As a result, Justice Paraguirre states, “The Article 6 Commission wanted to determine if broad based evaluations could paint an accurate picture of a judge’s performance.” He continues, “It is clear from this study that such evaluations can be very useful for the voting public and the judges themselves.”

It seems that instead of seeking a judicial appointment amendment to the Constitution, the Nevada Legislature should have considered, long ago, the option of judicial evaluations. The Truth . . . the judges don't want to be evaluated. The Nevada Supreme Court (all elected judges) decides whether or not they want to be evaluated. Only upon the introduction of judicial appointment legislation would they consider evaluation. Plainly, judges don't want regular people being put into the evaluation process. They really don't even want the attorney's surveying their actions.

The current evaluations in place are only a product of so many years of voters claiming that they do not have "enough information to make an informed decision" and after threats of judicial appointment legislation in the past. The Review Journal stepped up and got involved in the evaluation business, likely to sell newspapers. Now, we have a glorified popularity contest among attorneys. (Clark County started in 1992 and Washoe in 1994.) Those seeking justice, still, don't get a word in edge-wise on the performance of the judges in our state.

The Commission was, admittedly in the Report, formed in anticipation of the Nevada Legilature's proposed amendment to the Nevada Constitution for judicial appointment. The Report claims to have used "four core principles of transparency, fairness, thoroughness, and shared expectations" when developing the evaluation assessment. They argue that in this process, "judges are evaluated using objective and neutral criteria related to the process of judging rather than specific case outcomes," except for the fact that the Article 6 Commission has utilized a potential "target group" to be surveyed as the judges themselves. Judicial Self-Evaluation? Are they serious? Don't they know that the judges livlihood is on the line here . . . oh that's right, the Article 6 Commission is full of elected judges. What was I thinking?

Given the proposed "Missouri-Method", wherein judicial appointment would occur with periodic retention voting, the Commission suggests that a process for judicial evaluation, only now, be provided to the voters.

The Commission makes 5 recommendations in the report:

1. Develop a program design and conduct a cost analysis;
2. Create a Judicial Evaluation Program Commission to implement and oversee the design of the program;
3. Develop exit surveys for jurors and litigants to complete at the end of trials;
4. Create a data collection process and system to analyze and utilize the information;
5. Ensure that data exists so all persons in the court system can be contacted to provide needed input on judicial evaluations.

DUH! It sure would have been helpful for voters to have this information when voting on judicial contests. Voters should have been able to consider how a judge was performing when a challenger entered the scene. The Supreme Court, as an all elected body, was certainly never going to be the ones to give their opponents any fuel for the opposing campaign. Now, if the amendment is passed, the judges themselves will be their ONLY opponent, with specific criteria for evaluation.

The question remains, if the judicial appointment amendment is not passed by the voters, will we still get our judicial evaluations? I bet not.
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