DENVER — If you ever needed an excuse to be judgey, grab your election ballot.
Every ballot will have judges to vote on, but depending where you live, you'll have different judges.
Let's cut to the chase, how the heck are you supposed to know if you should vote yes or no for a judge?
Two years ago, former 9NEWS political reporter Brandon Rittiman investigated the topic. The overall theme is still accurate, even though the judges on your ballot are different.
First, you can use your statewide blue book and your local blue book (which probably isn't the color blue) to read up on the judges on your ballot.
You can also access the evaluations online, which you can access through the 9NEWS voter guide.
On your ballot, you're asked: "Shall Judge (insert name) of the (specific court) be retained in office?"
A "YES" vote means you want them to keep their job.
A "NO" vote means you want them fired.
State Supreme Court justices, judges on the Colorado Court of Appeals, District judges and County judges are all on different retention schedules.
Each justice or judge is appointed by the Governor, except Denver County. In Denver, the Denver mayor appoints the judges.
Once they're appointed, they serve an interim term for two years, and then at the next general election after those two years, voters get to decide if they keep their job or not.
If they make it past the interim term, they are up for retention again on this schedule:
- Supreme Court Justice: 10 years
- Colorado Court of Appeals: 8 years
- District Judge: 6 years
- County Judge: 4 years
Every voter will have Justice Richard Gabriel of the Colorado Supreme Court on their ballot.
Every voter will also have the Colorado Court of Appeals judges:
- John Daniel Dailey
- Rebecca Rankin Freyre
- Elizabeth Harris
- David Richman
The rest of the judges on your ballot depend on where you live.
You'll find district judges, based on which judicial district you live in. Judicial districts are run by the elected district attorney.
You'll also find county judges, based on the county you live in.
The Office of Judicial Performance Evaluation has a commission that grades the justices and judges.
Ultimately, your blue book (and the interactive online guide) let you know two options:
- "Meets performance standard" (used to be "Retain")
- "Does not meet performance standard" (used to be "Do not retain")
The language is different than previous years, when it used to say "retain" and "do not retain."
"We think that people might understand the language a little more, that if we use "meets performance" or "does not meet performance," they've all had performance evaluations of one kind or another, and that language is more familiar than "retain" or "do not retain," said Kent Wagner, Executive Director of the Office of Judicial Performance Evaluation. "There were some objections from voters saying that we were out of place making those recommendations, or basically trying to tell the voters how to vote."
The data, however, doesn't support that.
In 2014, three judges were given "do not retain" evaluations" and only one was voted out.
In 2016, two judges were given "do not retain" evaluations and only one was voted out.
This year, two judges have the "does not meet performance standard" evaluation.
- Judge Christopher Acker on El Paso County ballots
- Judge Phillip Douglass on ballots in the 18th Judicial District (Arapahoe, Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln Counties)
To determine if a judge gets a favorable or unfavorable evaluation, the commission:
- Reads surveys conducted by people who do business in front of the judge
- Observes the judge in the courtroom
- Reads opinions written by the judge
- Interviews the judge
All that is boiled down to a 500-word narrative for voters to digest.
"We give them enough information in our narratives and if they come out to our website, get all the information they need to make their own determination," said Wagner.
However, the part of the narrative that describes the flaws with a judge is buried in the fourth paragraph. The first three paragraphs detail the judge's biography, community service and how the what the commission used to determine the recommendation.
"We have to give people the information about what commissions do before we can actually start saying here's why they made that decision," said Wagner. "I would encourage people, if you really want to know why they made the decision, get to the fourth paragraph and read it."
Wagner said it would take a rule change from the commission to move that to the first paragraph.
This year, 136 judges were evaluated, but only 128 are on election ballots. Eight chose to not seek retention, meaning they will step down or resign. There's no clear way of knowing if they were about to receive a poor evaluation.
"Whether or not our evaluation played anything in that, I can't really say," said Wagner. "They made the determination that they're not going to stand for retention and some of them did it after we had evaluations."
If any justice or judge is voted out and not retained, the Governor will appoint a new justice or judge, except in Denver, where the mayor makes that decision.