JUDICIAL PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS: WHY THEY DON'T MATTER IN FAMILY COURT!

Members of the Coalition on Connecticut Family Court Reform sat tensely in the gallery of the Capitol Building watching the debate over the reappointment of Superior Court Judge Leslie Olear.  They had been campaigning for her ouster for a considerable amount of time prior to the debate.  When the vote came, the Coalition campaign "Say No to Judge Olear" lost by a vote of 78-67, with 5 absent & not voting. 

 

So what happened? 

 

Representatives felt that Judge Leslie Olear's performance evaluations were "overwhelmingly excellent" and that Coalition members had expressed their dissatisfaction too late to give Judge Olear an opportunity to improve her performance. 

 

But is Olear's performance as a Judge really excellent? 

 

And if there were more time available, would Judge Olear have had the opportunity to hear litigants' concerns regarding her performance?

 

Probably not. 

 

Why is that you ask? 

 

I will give you the answer, and mind you this is an answer that most of the legislators know because they are attorneys.  This means that when they are giving speeches to the general public and call the performance evaluation of a Judge such as Olear "overwhelmingly excellent" they know that such an assessment has one big major flaw. 

 

In particular, in regard to Family Court Judges, that flaw is considerable. 

 

The bottom line is, these Judicial Performance Evaluations do not include the views of the self represented parties who appear in family court whose numbers are estimated to be as high as 80%.  They also do not include the views of the remaining litigants who are represented by attorneys. 

 

For the better part, only attorneys provide significant input into the performance evaluations of trial court judges. This means that Superior Court judges in Family Court proceedings only receive performance evaluations from a small group of the cases they adjudicate, those with attorneys. 

 

It is equivalent to conducting teacher evaluations by having the teaching aides fill out all the evaluations while excluding feedback from the students. 

 

It makes no sense, does it--if you actually want a fair result. 

 

Logically speaking, if you are a judge in a courtroom and you see before you an attorney on the one side and a self represented party on the other, and you know that the attorney is going to walk out of the courtroom and write up your evaluation after the proceedings, whose side would you be on? 


Judges and opposing attorneys in Family Court cases repeatedly insist that self-represented litigants must abide by the same rules and standards that apply to attorneys.  However, as this disparate treatment in regard to Judges' Performance Evaluations reveals, attorneys have extraordinarily greater access to influence with Judges than self represented parties, and this makes a mockery of any statements that self represented parties have to rise to the level of attorneys.  Quite plainly, the system has extended an outright advantage to attorneys when it comes to Judges' Performance Evaluations, and that isn't the only one they have, as we all know.

Of course, they didn't clarify that point to you, did they, when those legislators spoke at the Capitol during the vote on February 26, 2014.  It has just been their little secret! 

Meanwhile, the CT Judicial Branch complains about what a big problem self-represented parties are, and how our lack of understanding of the legal process burdens the system.  No, that's not true.  The Problem with the CT Judicial Branch is attorneys--attorneys, attorneys, attorneys. 

 

During the reappointment hearings on Judges, Members of the Judiciary Committee asked questions based upon the performance reviews of those judges which they had received. 

 

So what do we know about these performance evaluations and why weren't all of us given copies? 

 

According to the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System based at the University of Denver, Connecticut has been conducting performance evaluations of trial judges since 1984.  Also, in Connecticut, the Judicial Branch has a Judicial Performance Evaluation Advisory Panel which is there "to review and implement" the wishes of the Judicial Performance Evaluation Program Committee. 

(I swear all these lengthy Committee names are simply there to confuse us!)

 

The Advisory Panel is made up of "twenty-three members who are appointed by the Chief Justice, and includes members of the bench, the bar, academia, and the Judicial Selection Commission." 

 

According to the Institute, "Attorneys are given an opportunity to rate judges as excellent, good, fair, or poor through a series of questions in the categories of comportment, legal ability, and management skills."  Juries are also given a series of questions that are different in nature but intended to assess the skills and abilities of the judge. 

 

The results of these Judicial Performance Evaluations are confidential, and only end up in the hands of the Judiciary Committee when a judge is nominated for reappointment or seeks a position on the Appellate or Supreme Court. 

 

So if you were wondering, that is how come, during the Judiciary Committee hearings to reappoint certain judges, the Committee Members were looking through the evaluations and asking questions based upon these evaluations, but the members of the audience didn't have copies and could only guess what was on them. 

 

The last time the Judicial Performance Program Committee conducted meetings to improve and update their Judicial Performance Evaluation Program was in 2009.  Apparently, a large part of the deliberations of the subcommittee that reviewed Judicial Performance Evaluations spent a considerable amount of time deciding who would be allowed to provide input into those evaluations. 

 

The Committee certainly considered whether to include information from litigants and self represented parties, but ultimately decided to turn down that proposal with a unanimous vote of 23 to zero.  The reasoning behind this unanimous vote as reported under recommendation 1 (b) of the "Report of the Subcommittee on the Improvement of the Existing System for the Evaluation of Trial Judges" dated May 19, 2009 was that, "It was concluded that the inclusion of those parties would. . .result in feedback of questionable value." 

(How condescending is that?  Of course, they don't mind taking our money!  Apparently, cash isn't of questionable value!)

 

From the Minutes of the June 4, 2009 meeting of the Judicial Performance Evaluation Program Committee the thinking behind denying litigants and self-represented parties participation in Judge's Evaluations was that "During discussion it was pointed out that other avenues exist for litigants and self-represented litigants to make complaints regarding a judge's conduct; e.g. complaints to the Judicial Review Council."

 

The latter comment motivated me to look up the Statistics associated with the Judicial Review Council to see whether there have been any good results for people who complained.  The bottom line is that in eight years only eight people have been reprimanded for judicial improprieties.  This is an extremely minimal level of accountability. 

A considerable number of complainants see their complaints dismissed simply because they miss the one year Statute of Limitations.  Of course, often with Family Court litigants it takes at least a year to recover from the pain and suffering that an unethical Judge causes so that they can begin to articulate what happened.  Finally, it is worth noting that from 2006 when there were 51 complaints to 2013 when there were 110, the Council saw the number of complaints double. I would also like to add that since it is widely known that Statewide Grievance and the Judicial Review Council pretty much ignore even the most egregious behavior, many abused litigants simply don't bother to submit their complaints. 

 

Readers should know that filing a complaint isn't that simple.  You have to write up your complaint in a clear and concise manner and provide documentation to prove your points.  If you are experiencing the symptoms of PTSD from Legal Abuse and you are emotionally devastated, this is very hard to do. In essence, what the Judicial Performance Evaluation Program Committee is doing is asking litigants with complaints about judges to provide feedback using the most labor intensive approach that exists.  My conclusion on that, of course, is that the Committee doesn't want to hear from litigants and simply wished to look for excuses to silence their voices.  Then, in the legislature, that silence gets used as an excuse to allow for the reappointment of corrupt and abusive judges.

 

The May 19, 2009 Report did recommend soliciting feedback regarding a judge's performance from "court staff personnel, probation officers, family relations officers, victim advocates, courtroom clerks, and interpreters" but recommended that this feedback be channeled through the Presiding Judge.  I suspect that would considerably white wash a lot of that feedback.  Still, what this means is, pretty much everyone has the opportunity to contribute to Judge's Performance Evaluations except the people directly affected by those Judge's actions, i.e. the litigants themselves. 

The end result of restricting feedback regarding a judge's performance to attorneys, peers, jurors who really know very little about the process, and to a limited extent court personnel, and superiors at the CT Judicial Branch while ignoring input from litigants and self represented parties is that Judges are receiving considerably skewed and flawed results to their Performance Evaluations. 

 

Like many corporate and political leaders Judges then become surrounded by interested parties with questionable motivations or by fawning sycophants who tell them what they want to hear.  This results in cases of "robitis" which one jocular Member of the Judiciary Committee pointed out.  The CT Judicial Branch needs to reconsider this flawed policy in regard to evaluating its judges.