SALT LAKE CITY — Utah voters have a tool to make informed decisions about judges who appear on the 2022 ballot.
That tool is the Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission (JPEC) website.
In Utah, judges are up for retention every six years. This election cycle, voters will decide if 63 judges should remain on the bench.
Utah’s Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission -- an independent body of 13 commissioners from varying backgrounds -- collects information from people each judge interacts with regularly – lawyers, court staff, and bailiffs for example.
JPEC reviews that feedback plus information from trained courtroom evaluators and looks at criteria like legal ability, procedural fairness, integrity, temperament and administrative skills before determining if a judge meets or exceeds minimum performance standards.
If a judge seeks retention, the reviews are published on the JPEC website.
This year, 62 of the 63 judges on the ballot have met or exceeded the requirements. The commission could not make a determination for the one remaining judge due to insufficient data caused by pandemic disruptions.
“Most of the time, virtually every time a judge gets a negative evaluation from JPEC, they resign or retire – they leave the bench,” said Jennifer Yim, the executive director of JPEC. “Their information doesn’t become public.”
Yim is encouraging all voters to do their homework before deciding whether to fill in a yes or no bubble next to a judge’s name on the ballot.
“Judges decide custody matters, they decide property rights, they can take our liberties away, send us to jail or order us to pay fines,” Yim said. “When people think about the impact judges can have on people's lives, they are quicker to recognize the fact that this vote is actually important.”
She believes this system offers the most fairness for judges and citizens as it takes campaigning out of the retention process.
In other states, judges will campaign and accept donations from supporters.
For instance, it is plausible a person on trial in one of those states could be opposed by a lawyer or litigant who gave a large campaign donation to a judge, clouding the prospect of a fair trial.
That does not and cannot happen in Utah in this system.
“We don't have judges taking time away from the bench to raise money and campaign,” Yim said. “Instead, we have judges being judges.”
