Voters in seven states could review evaluations of incumbent judges’ performance on the bench before this fall’s judicial elections, according to a joint release issued Oct. 16. The Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, a national research center that works to improve the civil justice system, issued the release with two partner groups. The states were Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina and Utah.

Judges were running in contestable elections in 32 states and in yes-or-no retention elections in 17 states, the release said. It described judicial races as low-information contests in which voters may choose by party affiliation or name recognition.

In the seven states, people who had used the courts rated judges on legal ability, impartiality, temperament and communication skills. The programs summarized the results for voters, often with data such as reversal rates and with a recommendation on how to vote. Utah’s Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission posted evaluations on a new website, judges.utah.gov, and used trained volunteers who were not lawyers to watch judges in their courtrooms.

In a 2011 Indiana poll, nearly one-third of respondents reported not voting regularly in judicial elections, and the reason they gave most often was a lack of useful information. Two-thirds said public performance evaluations would be of great or some value. In a 2012 Minnesota poll, three-fourths of respondents said they would support a balanced commission to review judges’ performance and publish the results.

Seth S. Andersen, executive director of the American Judicature Society, a nonpartisan organization with a national membership that works to improve the courts, said voters use the evaluation results “to make better-informed decisions on judges standing for retention,” citing surveys and exit polling. Bert Brandenburg, executive director of Justice at Stake, a nonpartisan campaign working to keep courts fair and impartial, said the evaluations let the public choose fair, high-quality judges “by focusing on competence instead of ideology.”

Gavel Grab first reported this story in October 2012, when the site was a project of Justice at Stake. This account of the same events was written from the public record.

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