Litigation

Many CO Retention Elections Set for November

By Peter Hardin

From the Colorado Supreme Court to its juvenile court, 139 judges and justices will face retention elections in November to determine whether they keep their jobs, the Colorado Statesman weekly newspaper reports.

The article resembles a primer on the system for evaluating judges in Colorado, and its pros and cons. The State Commission on Judicial Performance evaluates judges sitting on the Appeals Court and Supreme Court, and local district commissions evaluate district and county judges.

?If you look where there are elected judges or competitive races for judges, [Colorado has] the best system, whatever its shortcomings,? said Paul Farley, who chairs the commission.

But Matt Arnold of Clear the Bench Colorado said that while he likes the idea of performance review for judges, “the process is too closed [in Colorado]…it’s like the fox guarding the hen house.” His group  has been seeking to unseat several justices in retention elections this year (see Gavel Grab).

Full post as published by The Gavel on July 19, 2010 (boomark / email).