Figuring Out How To Vote On Colorado Judges

While I was in Florida, someone wanted to know if there was a cheat sheet available for voting on judges.

At one time I intended to create a cheat sheet, but I just ran out of time.  Here is how I would have gone about it.

District and County Judges:

1.  The Blue Book recommendations of judicial performance commissions are, in a word, worthless.  Ignore them.  Any individual commissioner who votes against a judge puts himself at risk for retribution should he be forced to litigate in that district and the law says he can't request that his litigation be moved.  You can thank your current Republican legislator for having his/her head up their...oh, I forgot, this is a family blog.  No Republican opposed a law that made retribution likely and the Democrat lawyers in charge of the legislature love the concept of retribution as much as the mafia because it keeps really bad judges in office.

2. The state has a nifty site that provides some of the underlying data that performance commissions use when deciding on each judge.  Select your county from this page.    I live in El Paso County and I find, as I expected, that all ten local judges are recommended for retention.  The information isn't useful so far. 

3.  By clicking on the name of each District and county judge, I find that every judge was recommended unamiously.  In 2006, the El Paso commissioners who chose not to vote for a judge simply stepped out of the room when the vote was taken.  Thus, commission votes were 8-0, 9-0, and 10-0, but you could tell that some commissioners were uneasy about some judges.  On the theory that was too much information for the public, the number of commissioners who voted is concealed, making this data point valueless.

4.  You can get meaningful information if you follow the link at the bottom of the verbiage on each judge's individual page.  Because Judge Edward Colt is the first judge listed, we will go into his underlying data to see what the attorneys (page 5) thought of him.  They weren't impressed with his knowledge and application of the law.  He got a 2.9 on a scale of 4 when the average judge got a 3.5.  If you litigate before a judge who is clueless about the law, you get to pay as your attorney educates him. 

The ten clowns on the 4th judicial district performance commission didn't think it important to alert the public that they were recommending a judge who doesn't know the law and thus would cost litigants money.  I can call them clowns because they pulled the same stunt two years ago and then were obnoxious about it.  They couldn't be bothered to tell the public that in every category, Judge Edward Colt is a below average judge, and in some categories he is significantly below average.  Their biggest complaint-that he is soft spoken.  All fluff and no stuff.

5.  Ignore everything else.  Jurors are clueless as to whether the judges enforced the rules fairly, knowing only that he smiled at them when they came in in the morning and left at night.  In my trial, the jurors were told that it was "no one's fault that it took eight years to get to trial."  It was a bald faced lie, but a convenient lie for the judge involved.

For El Paso and Teller Counties, I would suggest the following votes based on the above analysis:  Judge Edward Colt:  Do Not Retain;  Judge Ronald G Crowder:  Retain (lawyers love him  and rate very highly qualified but non lawyers hate him);  Judge Jann P. DuBois Retain (A superstar);  Thomas K. Kane  Retain  (A superstar); Thomas L. Kennedy Retain (slightly above average); David S. Price Retain (Another Superstar);  Kirk S. Samelson Retain (just average despite the glowing writeup);  Gregory Werner Retain (just average); Karla J. Hansen Do Not Retain  (another judge who doesn't know the law and appears to be a petty tyrant--attorneys think her impolite, disrespectful, lacking in empathy, lacking in neutrality--see pg 9); Daniel S. Wilson Retain (average).

Note that under the system that the legislature has created, some really bad judges can easily navigate the local judicial performance commission.  Thank your local legislator.  He is happy with the system and you should be as well.  One wonders if he would be so happy if he were paying the bills for judicial misconduct (just a thought).

Appeals Court judges and justices:

This is a bit harder.

I did a little experiment this year.  I provided the state commission with 20 legitimate reasons why Justices Eid and Hobbs shouldn't be retained.  It took four requests to get the commission to acknowledge that I had sent the document.  I wasn't at all surprised that my input was totally ignored.

Everyone seems to like Justice Eid.  Justice Hobbs has some integrity problems relating to the enforcement of the legal ethics rules.  On the other hand, Bill Ritter is enough of a flake that I'm operating under the better the devil you know theory.

I don't trust the state judicial performance commission enough to try to make any appeals court recommendations.

Comments

[ColoradoDivorce1993]

I would request that you reconsider your recommendation on Judge Ronald G. Crowder, 4th District, El Paso County. In a recent civil decision, he allowed a woman to come back 14 years later and reopen a closed divorce settlement to get additional property benefits that did not exist at the time of the divorce, in complete violation of Rules 59 and 60 of the Colorado Rules of Civil Procedure, and in direct violation of long standing case law and public policy. The court transcript shows that he clearly overstepped his judicial authority, ignoring all written law and facts and based his decision solely on his own personal experience and prejudices. What little law he managed to cite was incorrectly interpreted. Furthermore, Crowder also attempted to overstep his authority in an earlier criminal case. In that instance, he tried to force a DA to plea bargain; which was cited in an April 2007 article by Dennis Huspeni of the Colorado Springs Gazette. The civil case is in appeal and scheduled for oral argument on November 4, 2008. If Crowder's ruling is allowed to stand, no divorce case in Colorado will ever be final. His inability to render an impartial judgment based on LAW hardly makes him worthy of a "retention recommendation."

(I can provide the transcript).

[a watcher]

The method I suggested isn't perfect. It would not have selected Judge Larry Schwartz for a non retention recommendation in 2006. Schwartz was the judge in my lawsuit who couldn't seem to enforce any rules. His lawyer scores are so high that this method would have resulted in a "superstar" rating.

While the system I suggested won't select out all bad judges, it is better than trusting a completely untrustworthy 4th Judicial District Judicial Performance Commission that is guided by a state commission predisposed to protecting bad judges.

Make sure you report what he did to the local judicial performance commission next cycle. By then, my guess is that the system will be more inclined to weed out the obvious stinkers.

Also, drop me an email, please. We can have coffee.

[Jenn]

Hi. Just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to post this. I found it online. I recently moved to Colorado from California. I wanted to vote responsibly, and you've certainly helped me do that. I appreciate your time and the method by which you choose to determine your ratings. It was more impartial, which allowed me to trust the data more readily.

[Mynoa Williams]

I want to vote responsibly. I have tried to find out info on judges. Does anyone know anything about Bernard, Fuman, Hawthorne, Jones, Roman or Terry of the CO Court of Appeals?
I want to get my absentee ballot in as soon as possible.
Thanks for your time, interest and knowledge. Mynoa Williams

[a watcher]

For this year, I am suggesting (out of total ignorance) that you vote to retain them all. I may be totally mistaken to do this, but I am operating on the do no harm theory.

Two years from now I will have better information.

[Rick]

Mynoa,
I have done extensive searching, I can't find a thing about Judges Terry and Roman. The others have at least published opinions so you can get an idea of how they rule, but it tedious and time consuming to wade through the information. These sites list Opinions of the Court, but I still could not find a thing about Terry and Roman.

Rood Luck Rick

http://www.cobar.org/opinions/index.cfm?CourtID=1
http://www.courts.state.co.us/Courts/Court_of_Appeals/Case_Announcements/Index.cfm

[monumentlawman]

A watcher - Thanks for the informative post.

A better "do no harm approach" would probably to not vote on cases where you have no information rather than vote to retain.

[a watcher]

Unfortunately there is at least one blog suggesting that folks vote not to retain solely on a partisan basis. I'd like to see a non partisan system that really worked, which is why the methodology suggested here doesn't look at party affiliation.

Bad judges usually don't check the party affiliation of the litigants they damage. The judge who worked me over shares my party affiliation (I'll be writing about what happened on the day after the election), but shouldn't be on the bench.

In this situation, I think that to do no harm is to vote to retain, but that is not to say that your suggestion is wrong. In a perfect world, you would be correct.

I've done some rethinking about Judge Crowder. When the whole nonlawyer contingent thinks him a bad judge, he shouldn't be retained. Next time I do this post, I will change that kind of recommendation.

[rtw]

Do not know what your issues with Justice Eid may have been. I'm finding it difficult to find sufficient information for an informed vote on most judges. BUT - Justice Eid was the only member of the Supreme Court sufficiently sane to dissent from the decision that Telluride could use eminent domain to condemn private property OUTSIDE its own territory for any purpose it dreamed up, contrary to law and contrary to the specific purposes enumerated in the constitution. All the other justices need to be removed.

[a watcher]

Justice Eid is the most sane of the lot. Not sure how you came to the conclusion I was uncomfortable with her. Hobbs is a problem. Some folks I know and respect are suggesting he not be retained, but others I know and respect are of the opposite opinion.

In two years some real ringers will be up, and they won't get this kind of recommendation.

[ColoradoDivorce1993]

I am happy to report the Colorado Court of Appeals OVERTURNED Judge Ronald G. Crowder's *September 5, 2007 Order(4th District, El Paso County) allowing an ex-wife to come back 14 years later to reopen a closed divorce settlement to demand additional property benefits that did not exist at the time of divorce--in COMPLETE violation of long standing Colorado Statutes and Colorado case law.

The appeal decision (Case #07CA2295) stated: "[w]ife has established no basis in this case under C.R.C.P. 60 or otherwise, for relief from a final decree. The order permitting wife to obtain life insurance on husband's life and requiring husband to cooperate in helping wife obtain that insurance is reversed."

*See Order and Transcript at: http://www.dvmen.org/dv-79.htm