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 Lack of a comprehensive evaluation system allows poor work habits of judges to go unchecked By Jon Schmitz The way Brian Sanderoff sees it, good judges are eager to be judged. Sanderoff's firm, Research & Polling Inc. of Albuquerque, N.M., was hired to implement a statewide judicial-evaluation program ordered by the New Mexico Supreme Court last year. Starting this year, New Mexico voters will get detailed reports on judges who face retention elections. Input for the reports will come from lawyers, witnesses, jurors, litigants, court personnel and the judges themselves. Like Pennsylvania, New Mexico elects its judges, then subjects them to yes-no retention votes at the end of their terms. There is no formal, comprehensive evaluation program for judges in Pennsylvania. The Allegheny County Bar Association in late 1996 surveyed trial lawyers about the performance of county and federal judges and plans to repeat the survey in 2000 and every four years thereafter. In New Mexico, Sanderoff's firm sends out questionnaires to people who have had contact with the judges over the prior year. That includes attorneys who have had cases before the judges, police officers, court staffers, jurors and litigants. ''All of the groups respond anonymously, for obvious reasons,'' Sanderoff said. The results are to be compiled and reviewed by a committee of seven lawyers and eight non-lawyers that will issue a recommendation on whether each judge should be retained. The committee's reports will be made public 45 days before the retention elections. New Mexico requires a judge to get 57 percent of the ''yes'' vote to be retained. In Pennsylvania, a judge is retained if he or she exceeds 50 percent of the ''yes'' votes. Losing a retention election at the 50 percent standard is virtually impossible, because many voters habitually pull the ''yes'' lever out of indifference. Judges also will undergo evaluations in the middle of their terms, but those reports will be provided only to the judges as a ''self-improvement tool,'' Sanderoff said. ''Speaking frankly, the best judges tend to be the most supportive of this system. The ones who need it the most . . . may get some shocking and eye-opening information,'' he said. Judges generally have been favorable toward New Mexico's evaluation program, Sanderoff said. ''Being elected judge doesn't immunize a person against weakness, misjudgments, laziness and the like. If a judge doesn't recognize his or her weaknesses, only an evaluation will bring them to light. ''If you're a good judge, it's to your advantage. . . . Now, the good judges have a system where they will be rewarded.'' Barry Simpson, president of the Allegheny County Bar Association, said its surveys would make judges accountable to the public. He said it was important that they be done regularly, so judges had a benchmark of their progress. The 1996 survey was the first one in many years, Simpson said. ''I am very much a proponent of judicial surveys. A survey, fairly done, provides judicial accountability,'' Simpson said. President Judge Robert E. Dauer has derided the bar association survey as a ''beauty contest,'' but said he had no objection to a well-structured evaluation process. ''I've never had any objection to someone looking over my shoulder, seeing what I do and reporting it to the world. Every judge should be that way,'' Dauer said. Longer hours, promptness and better schedules top suggestions for improving the courts
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