Background Information 
Kansas statutes establish the requirements for membership on the Commission on Judicial Performance. Members are appointed by the Judicial Council and are required to be persons of outstanding competence and reputation. Six of the Commission members are required to be non-lawyers and six Commission members and the chairperson are required to be lawyers or judges. The statutes also require that at least two Commission members reside in each congressional district. The Kansas Commission is unique among states having judicial performance Commissions in that none of its members is appointed by the courts and no sitting judges or justices serve on the Commission.

The Commission is required by statute to publicly recommend that judges subject to retention elections either "be retained" or "not be retained." To make this decision, the Commission surveys people who have been in the judge's courtroom or otherwise have had sufficient experience with a judge or justice to form an opinion about the performance of the judge or justice. The Commission has adopted performance standards upon which survey questions are based and has designed confidential surveys that ask those surveyed to evaluate the judge or justice on his or her legal ability, integrity, impartiality, communication skills, professionalism, temperament and administrative performance. In addition, the Commission is required to consider the judge's or justice's self-evaluation. The Commission may also rely on any other information that assists in the evaluation of the judge or justice, such as information from courtroom observation.

In evaluating judges and justices, the Commission also considers decisions of the Commission on Judicial Qualifications, which handles disciplinary matters involving judges. The Commission on Judicial Performance has access to those decisions only when they become final and are made public.

Recommendations of whether to retain or not retain a judge or justice are based on the Commission's analysis of all the information it has considered about each judge and justice under the rules it has adopted (which were approved by the Supreme Court). In deciding how to vote in retention elections, voters are encouraged to carefully review the narrative profiles and reports on this website, compare any personal experience sufficient to form an opinion, and arrive at an independent conclusion to vote whether the judges or justices should or should not be retained.

Surveys

Because a key part of the Commission's evaluation of judges and justices is the survey of people who have sufficient experience to form an opinion about the performance of the judge or justice, information about the survey process may be of interest.

As background, there are currently 266 judges and justices in Kansas. These 266 judges and justices can broadly be divided into two categories: appellate judges, of which there are 20; and trial court judges, of which there are 246. Appellate judges and justices can further be subdivided into two more groups, Supreme Court justices and Court of Appeals judges. Trial court judges can also be subdivided into two groups, district judges and district magistrate judges.

Kansas uses two methods to choose its judges, either by merit selection with retention vote or by partisan elections. All 20 appellate justices and judges and 129 trial court judges in 17 judicial districts are initially appointed by merit selection. There are 117 trial court judges in 14 judicial districts where judicial candidates run in partisan political elections.

Supreme Court justices serve six-year terms. Court of Appeals judges and trial judges serve four-year terms. The following table shows the potential number of justices and judges standing for retention or partisan election in 2010, 2012 and 2014.

View the Count of Judges by End of Term and Retained/Elected Table

Surveys about all judges and justices are conducted quarterly, with the quarterly results combined and used to generate final survey reports and midterm reports. The methodology of conducting surveys about appellate judges and justices consists of surveying attorneys who have appeared before the appellate courts, appellate court staff attorneys, district judges and other appellate judges who have sufficient experience with a judge to form an opinion about his or her performance. The methodology of conducting surveys about trial court judges consists of surveying attorneys and appellate judges who have had sufficient experience with a judge to form an opinion about his or her performance. Non-attorneys such as jurors, litigants, witnesses, law enforcement personnel, court staff, probation officers, social services caseworkers, CASA volunteers and other resource persons who have appeared before or had sufficient experience with the judge or justice being evaluated to form an opinion about his or her performance are also surveyed.

The names and addresses of most potential survey respondents for surveys about trial judges are obtained from four primary trial court databases. Those are the Johnson County database for judges in Johnson County, the Sedgwick County database for judges in Sedgwick County, the Shawnee County database for judges in Shawnee County, and the State of Kansas FullCourt database for judges in the other 102 counties of the state. The names of attorneys appearing before appellate courts are obtained from the database of cases maintained by the Supreme Court.

Because of time and budget constraints the target sample size for the first report was reduced to 200. Ideally, the number of completed questionnaires for each trial judge would be 400 collected over a four-year period. Not until 2012 will the target sample size be 400. Please note the use of the term "target sample size." The sample size is a target because for many judges, especially in sparsely populated counties or judicial districts, a relatively small number of different attorneys appear before them. For many judges it may not be possible to obtain a cumulative sample near the target size after attempting to survey everyone (not just a sample) who has sufficient experience with a judge to form an opinion about the judge's performance. If the number of potential respondents is large enough, a random sample will be surveyed.

Because appellate judges and justices generally decide fewer cases than trial judges, and there is a relatively small number of attorneys who regularly practice before the appellate courts, all attorneys (rather than a sample) who participate in a case before the Supreme Court or a panel of the Court of Appeals will be surveyed about all members of the Supreme Court or all members of the Court of Appeals panel who heard the case. This should result in 20 to 30 completed surveys per year for each Supreme Court justice and each judge of the Court of Appeals.

Appellate judges and justices are also evaluated by a survey of other appellate judges, those district court judges who have had sufficient experience to form an opinion, and appellate staff attorneys. These surveys are conducted in the fourth quarter of the year prior to the judge or justice's retention election.

Because email addresses are available for a high percentage of attorneys, the attorney surveys are conducted using email/web methodologies, with follow-up by telephone, if necessary. For many of the non-attorneys only their mailing address will be available and questionnaires will have to be mailed.

Reports

Trial judge reports and appellate judge reports will be issued twice during the term of each judge or justice. The Commission will provide midterm judicial performance evaluation reports if its budget allows. Reports for judges subject to retention elections will be issued once in the year that the judge stands for retention, and if a midterm survey report is issued it will be issued approximately in the middle of the judge's term. The survey of appellate judges about district judges will not be included in a midterm survey report for trial court judges, and the survey of judges about appellate judges will not be included in a midterm survey report for appellate judges. There will also be a report for elected judges and a midterm judicial evaluation report if the Commission's budget allows. Because the reports on elected judges are not released publicly, the reports will be issued to the judges during non-election years. The following chart shows the anticipated schedule for providing the reports to the judges and justices, assuming midterm reports are done.

View the Report Schedule Table

As required by statute, the reports on retention election judges and justices will contain a retention recommendation. This recommendation to retain or not retain will be included on each judge's or justice's narrative profile. Current Commission rules provide that if a judge or justice receives a 2.0 or better overall average grade from each category of persons who are surveyed (attorneys, non-attorneys, and judges for trial judges and attorneys and judges for appellate judges) the Commission must make a recommendation of retain, unless other information reveals a serious deficiency in meeting one or more judicial performance standards. If the overall average is less than 2.0 from any category of persons surveyed, the Commission must make a recommendation of "do not retain," unless one of the exceptions contained in the rules applies.

Dissemination of Reports

The statute creating the Commission on Judicial Performance provides that the Commission shall, with the aid of professional consultants where appropriate, make the judicial performance evaluation results widely available when they are to be used to assist voters in evaluating the performance of judges and justices subject to retention elections.

The first evaluations of judges subject to retention elections were completed for the 2008 election. The Commission worked to make the judicial performance evaluation results as widely available as possible. The judicial performance evaluations for the judges and justices standing for retention election in 2010 were posted on the Commission's website on September 1, 2010. The Commission has continued efforts to make the judicial performance evaluation results widely available. The following is a description of the efforts the Commission made to publicize the 2010 evaluations: 

• The Commission purchased 30-second radio spots on 120 radio stations describing the judicial performance evaluations and urging listeners to visit the Commission's website to see those evaluations. The spots ran from September 1st until the election on November 2nd.
• The Commission purchased advertising in the form of "post-it" notes that were placed on the front page of 19 of the State's largest newspapers. The advertisements appeared near the beginning of advance voting and again shortly before the election.
• The Commission purchased advertising in an additional 128 smaller newspapers which ran once near the beginning of advance voting and again shortly before the election.
• Web advertising appeared on the websites of approximately 20 newspapers and television stations from September 1st through November 2nd.
• The Commission distributed over 20,000 informational brochures describing the program and referring persons to the Commission's website. The brochures will be placed in courthouses and libraries statewide and distributed to all Kansas attorneys.
• In addition, the Commission: advertised in the magazines and newsletters of state and local bar associations; had links posted on the websites of organizations such as the League of Women Voters and county Election Commissioners, Secretary of State and others; distributed a series of press releases containing information about the evaluations; and, all Commission members made themselves available for interviews by journalists.