JPE Recommendations On Schedule for 2010
Article Date: Friday, November 20, 2009
The Judicial Performance Evaluation (JPE) Project of the North Carolina Bar Association convened Nov. 12 to determine its ratings for incumbent Superior and District Court judges who will be up for re-election in 2010.
This groundbreaking action, which has been years in the making, will provide North Carolina voters with their first formal statewide evaluation process in which incumbent judges are rated “Qualified” or “Not Qualified” for re-election.
The timetable calls for an appeals process in December, during which judges who wish to do so may appeal their “Not Qualified” ratings before three-member panels of JPE Committee members. The full committee will then reconvene to finalize its ratings in early January.
Ratings will be published on the NCBA Web site, in a format similar to a voter’s guide, and distributed to members of the media via various communications vehicles.
A total of 3,140 evaluations on 142 incumbent trial court judges were used to determine the committee’s findings. The great majority of these evaluation surveys were completed by members of the NCBA and non-member attorneys including prosecutors and public defenders.
An effort was made to include court personnel (bailiffs, clerks of court and court reporters) in the evaluation process, but insufficient numbers of responses were returned to incorporate their evaluations into the final ratings.
Additionally, not every incumbent judge evaluated will receive a rating. Judges who have not had the benefit of a prior evaluation under the pilot project, and hence an opportunity to make any necessary improvements, will be excluded, as will judges who received an insufficient number of completed evaluations from the pilot project.
Also, judges for whom an insufficient number of responses were received will not receive ratings. The process calls for judges to first receive a “mid-term” evaluation that would offer them the opportunity for self-improvement on any areas cited in the survey.
Thus, judges who have been appointed recently will not receive ratings now; however, they will be included in the next round of evaluation surveys that will be conducted beginning in February. The results of these surveys may then be used in the evaluation process that will apply to judges seeking re-election in 2012.
That is a key point to remember when discussing or reviewing the JPE Program – it is an ongoing process.
Still, the completion of the initial evaluation process will indeed mark a historic achievement for this committee and the NCBA as it endeavors to serve the public by informing the electorate before each general election of the evaluation of each trial judge.
In so doing, the evaluation process also performs an important public service by providing judges with constructive comments for self-improvement and by enhancing the performance and increasing the accountability of North Carolina’s trial judges.
Rhoda Billings, former chief justice of the N.C. Supreme Court, chairs the JPE Committee, whose membership is comprised of equal numbers of retired attorneys, retired trial court judges and non-lawyers.