The Observation Deck

Once again this election cycle, there is some help to select the choice for the various Judicial races.

www.Judge4Yourself.com


Please take the time and educate yourself on some of the candidates.

Tim I completely agree with you. This is the best site I know of to help vote for judges if you don't have first hand knowledge of these candidates.

I think election of judges has always been a problem, as the primary qualification for as long as I can remember has been having the right name, and most voters have only that information.

I suppose the cited report is better than nothing, but I don't think it is an ideal solution. Basically this is a survey of lawyers who are members of certain bar associations. I don't know if the survey is anonymous or not, but I know it is almost impossible to get a practicing attorney to make a public criticism of a judge, as they are concerned that the judge would hold that against them.

Also, I would want to know why an attorney assigned a specific evaluation. I don't think it is unrealistic to think that a high evaluation could be assigned because a judge told good jokes; or was willing to schedule cases around the tee times of attorneys involved; or even wouldn't make hard decisions of matters of law (these are matters that should be decided by the judge, rather than by a relatively uninformed jury), leaving the attorneys to try and manipulate the jury into making an uninformed decision.

I think parties in court should have a relatively quick resolution of their issues, and I am concerned that a judge who was willing to subordinate prompt processing while he and the attorneys played golf, partied, and attended seminars, could be evaluated as excellent, when he probably deserves a lower evaluation.

I do think that information concerning how frequently and for what reason a judge's rulings are reversed on appeal would be useful, but so few cases actually go to appeal that that information would probably have limited value.

But, as I said, I don't know of a better tool to use, short of requiring prospective judges to undergo a neutral evaluation, and I doubt we would be willing to pay for that.