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Kansas Commission on Judicial Performance
General Information The Kansas Commission on Judicial Performance was created in 2006 by the Kansas Legislature to improve the performance of individual judges and the judiciary as a whole. The Commission's evaluations of all of the state court trial and appellate judges will be provided to the judges and justices for self-improvement. In addition, for judges and justices who are subject to retention elections, the Commission's evaluations will be disseminated to the public to help voters make informed decisions about whether to continue those judges and justices in office. The Commission's evaluations of senior judges will be provided to the Supreme Court for use in determining whether the individual senior judges' contracts should be renewed, and will also be made public. Kansas statutes establish the requirements for membership on the Commission on Judicial Performance. Members are appointed by the Judicial Council and are required to be persons of outstanding competence and reputation. Six of the Commission members are chosen from non-lawyers and six Commission members and the chairperson are chosen from lawyers or judges. The statutes also require that at least two Commission members reside in each congressional district. The Kansas Commission is unique among states having judicial performance Commissions in that none of its members is appointed by the courts and no sitting judges or justices serve on the Commission. The Commission is required to publicly recommend that judges subject to retention elections either "be retained" or "not be retained." To make this decision, the Commission surveys people who have sufficient experience with a judge or justice to form an opinion about the performance of the judge or justice. The Commission has adopted performance standards upon which survey questions are based and has designed confidential surveys that ask those surveyed to evaluate the judge or justice on his or her ability, integrity, impartiality, communication skills, professionalism, temperament and administrative capacity. In addition, the Commission is required to consider the judge's or justice's self-evaluation. The Commission may also rely on any other information that assists in the evaluation of the judge or justice. In evaluating jurists, the Commission also considers decisions of the Commission on Judicial Qualifications, which handles disciplinary matters involving judges. The Commission on Judicial Performance has access only to those decisions when they are made public and does not consider a decision about a judge until it is final. Recommendations of whether to retain or not retain a judge or justice are based on the Commission's analysis of all the information it considered about each judge and justice under the rules it has adopted (which were approved by the Supreme Court). In deciding how to vote in retention elections, voters are encouraged to carefully review the narrative profiles and reports on this Web site about jurists on the ballot in the voter's county, compare any personal experience sufficient to form an opinion about the performance of a jurist up for election, and arrive at an independent conclusion about whether the jurist should or should not be retained. Surveys Because a key part of the Commission's evaluation of judges and justices is the survey of people who have sufficient experience with a judge or justice to form an opinion about the performance of the judge or justice, information about the survey process may be of interest. As background, there are currently 264 judges and justices in Kansas, and in January 2009, the number will rise to 266. These 266 judges and justices can broadly be divided into two categories: appellate judges, of which there are 20; and trial court judges, of which there will be 246. Appellate judges and justices can further be subdivided into two more groups, Supreme Court justices and Court of Appeals judges. Trial court judges can also be subdivided into two groups, district judges and district magistrate judges. Kansas uses two methods to choose its judges, either by merit selection with retention vote or by partisan elections. All 20 appellate justices and judges and 129 trial court judges in 17 judicial districts are initially chosen by merit selection. There are currently 115 trial court judges in the 14 judicial districts where judicial candidates run in political elections, and this number will increase to 117 in January 2009. Supreme Court justices serve six-year terms, and Court of Appeals judges serve four-year terms. Senior judges enter into contracts for one-year periods. The following table shows the potential number of justices and judges standing for retention or partisan election in 2008, 2010 and 2012 and the number of senior judges whose contracts expire in 2009 and 2010. The Commission has decided that, once the judicial performance program is fully implemented, surveys about all judges and justices (except senior judges) will be conducted quarterly, with the quarterly results combined and used to generate final survey reports and midterm reports. Once results have been collected for a judge's or justice's full term (16 or 24 quarters), the data will be maintained so as to allow calculation of moving averages with the most recent quarterly results added to the data and the oldest quarterly sample removed. The methodology of conducting surveys about appellate judges and justices consists of surveying attorneys who have appeared before the appellate courts, appellate court staff attorneys, district judges and other appellate judges who have sufficient experience with a judge to form an opinion about his or her performance. The methodology of conducting surveys about trial court judges consists of surveying attorneys and appellate judges who have had sufficient experience with a judge to form an opinion about his or her performance. Non-attorneys such as jurors, litigants, witnesses, law enforcement personnel, court staff, probation officers, social services caseworkers, CASA volunteers and other resource persons who have appeared before or had sufficient experience with the judge or justice being evaluated to form an opinion about his or her performance are also being surveyed. Surveys about senior judges, whether they are working as trial court judges or appellate court judges, will be conducted using the same methodology as is used for full-time judges performing the same duties. The names and addresses of most potential survey respondents are obtained from three primary trial court databases. Those are the Johnson County database for judges in Johnson County, the Shawnee County database for judges in Shawnee County and the State of Kansas FullCourt database for judges in all other counties of the state. Ideally, the number of completed questionnaires for each judge would be 400 collected over a four-year period. Twenty-five would be collected each quarter, and a moving average would be maintained so that as 25 new surveys are added each quarter, the 25 oldest are deleted. For Supreme Court justices, the rolling average will be maintained over six years, the length of their terms. Because of time and budget constraints, the target sample size for the first report was reduced to 200. Not until 2012 will the target sample size be 400. Please note the use of the term "target sample size." The sample size is a target because for many judges in sparsely populated counties or judicial districts, it may not be possible to obtain a cumulative sample of even 200 respondents after attempting to survey everyone (not just a sample) who has sufficient experience with a judge to form an opinion about the judge's performance. In addition, a substantial portion of some judges' dockets may be cases that were previously considered confidential, and the names and addresses of the people involved in those cases will not be available until 2009. Where the number of potential respondents is large enough, a random sample will be surveyed. The following table shows the current plan relating to target sample size for merit selected and elected trial court judges.
Because appellate judges and justices generally decide fewer cases than trial judges, and there is a relatively small number of attorneys who regularly practice before the appellate courts, it is likely that all attorneys (rather than a sample) who participate in a case before the Supreme Court or a panel of the Court of Appeals will need to be surveyed. This should result in 25 to 35 completed surveys per year for each Supreme Court justice and 50 to 75 completed surveys for each judge of the Court of Appeals. Because senior judges work only part-time, it is likely all people who have sufficient experience with them will be surveyed. Appellate judges and justices are also evaluated by a survey of other appellate judges, those district court judges who have had sufficient experience to form an opinion and appellate staff attorneys. These surveys are conducted in the fourth quarter of the year prior to the judge or justice's retention election. Because mailing addresses, telephone numbers and a fairly high percentage of e-mail addresses will be available for attorneys, the attorney surveys will be conducted by mail, telephone, e-mail/Web or a combination of all three. For many of the non-attorneys only their mailing address will be available; thus, questionnaires will have to be mailed. It is possible that telephone numbers and e-mail addresses may be available for some subpopulations, and if this is the case, then it will permit these groups to be surveyed using telephone or e-mail/Web methodologies. Reports Once the judicial performance evaluation process is fully operational, trial judge reports and appellate judge reports will be issued twice during the term of each judge or justice. The Commission will provide midterm judicial performance evaluation reports if its budget and work schedule allow. Reports for judges subject to retention elections will be issued once in the year that the judge stands for retention, and if a midterm survey report is issued it will be issued approximately in the middle of the judge's term. The survey of appellate judges about district judges will not be included in a midterm survey report for trial court judges, and the survey of judges about appellate judges will not be included in a midterm survey report for appellate judges. There will also be a report for elected judges and a midterm judicial evaluation report, if the Commission's budget and work schedule allow. Because the reports on elected judges are not released publicly, the reports will be issued to the judges during off-election years. The following chart shows the anticipated schedule for providing the reports to the judges and justices, assuming midterm reports are done. Evaluations of senior judges will be provided to the Supreme Court so they may be used when the court considers renewal of the senior judge contracts and will be released to the public. Dissemination Of Reports The statute creating the Commission on Judicial Performance provides that the Commission shall, with the aid of professional consultants where appropriate, make the judicial performance evaluation results widely available when they are to be used to assist voters in evaluating the performance of judges and justices subject to retention elections. The first evaluations of judges subject to retention elections have been completed and were made public Aug. 29. The Commission has worked, and will continue to work, to make the judicial performance evaluation results as widely available as possible. The following are examples of what the Commission and its professional consultant have done and plan to do:
In 2008, the Legislature directed that the Commission evaluate senior judges. Senior judges are recently retired judges and justices who contract with the Supreme Court to work part time. There are currently 11 senior judges. The Legislature requires the Commission to evaluate senior judges and to provide the evaluations to the Supreme Court for use in determining whether the senior judges' contracts should be renewed. The Commission is also required to make the results of the evaluations of the senior judges public. Read Evaluations of 2008 Appointed Judges and Justices To see the results of surveys conducted about each appointed justice and judge who will appear on your general election ballot, use the drop-down feature to find the county where you will vote and click "go."
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