a. Members
b. Goals
c. Duties
d. Internal Operating Procedures
e. Required Disclosures and Prohibitions
f. Removal for Cause
g. Staff

a. Preparation
b. Contents

a. All Judges
b. Reports of Judges Subject to Retention Elections

(1) "Agent" means a person or entity authorized to perform work for the Commission;

(2) "Commission" means the Kansas Commission on Judicial Performance;

(3) "Judge" includes a Supreme Court justice, Court of Appeals judge, District Court judge and District Magistrate judge; and

(4) "Survey," when used as a noun, means the questionnaires prepared and circulated by the Commission.

Pursuant to K.S.A. 20-3202, the Commission shall be composed of 13 members appointed by the Judicial Council. Six members shall be non-lawyers and six members shall be lawyers or judges. The chairman shall be a lawyer or judge. At least one non-lawyer member and at least one lawyer or judge member shall reside in each congressional district. Regular terms of commission members shall be for four years and shall be staggered; therefore, the initial terms of three lawyer or judge members and three non-lawyer members shall be for two years. Of these six members, one shall be from each congressional district and two shall be "at large" members. Members may be reappointed for additional terms, and the term of a member shall continue until a successor is appointed.

The goals of the Commission are:

(1) To improve the judicial performance of individual judges and thereby improve the judiciary as a whole;

(2) where judges are subject to retention elections, to disseminate the judicial performance evaluation results to enable voters to make informed decisions about continuing judges in office;

(3) to protect judicial independence while promoting public accountability of the judiciary; and

(4) to establish a mechanism to incorporate judicial performance evaluation results in designing judicial education programs.

The Commission shall establish and administer a system of periodic review of the performance of each Kansas judge. The Commission shall, with the aid of professionals where appropriate:

(1) Create surveys of persons who have directly observed the judge's performance or interacted with the judge. The surveys shall be distributed, collected and tabulated by an independent firm or in any other manner that insures confidentiality. The surveys shall ask those surveyed to evaluate the judge on such judge's ability, integrity, impartiality, communication skills, professionalism, temperament and administrative capacity suitable to the jurisdiction and level of court.

(2) Develop clear, measurable performance standards upon which the survey questions are based.

(3) Develop a procedure for each judge to receive and respond to the Commission regarding his or her judicial performance evaluation report. Such procedure shall provide judges subject to retention elections an opportunity to receive and respond to the Commission regarding his or her judicial performance evaluation report before the report is made public.

(4) Develop dissemination plans pursuant to K.S.A. 20-3204(c) that:

(A) Protect confidentiality when the judicial performance evaluation is used only for self-improvement;

(B) make the judicial performance evaluation results widely available when they are to be used to assist voters in evaluating the performance of judges subject to retention election; and

(C) make public recommendations regarding whether to retain judges standing for retention election.

(5) Make available in the Kansas Judicial Center and in each county courthouse the names of the members of the Commission and the address, telephone number and e-mail address of the Commission.

(6) Develop an Internet Web site that contains the information specified in subsection (c)(5) of this rule and additional relevant information.

The Commission may adopt rules governing internal operating procedures relating to judicial performance evaluation and meeting procedures. Such rules shall be consistent with K.S.A. 20-3201 through K.S.A. 20-3205 and these rules.

A Commission member shall disclose any professional or personal relationship with a judge that may affect an unbiased evaluation of that judge, including any litigation involving the judge and any family or business relationship. Failure to disclose such information may be cause for removal from the Commission.

No Commission member or staff shall complete a survey about any judge.

The Kansas Judicial Council may remove any member of the Commission for cause, including, but not limited to, any violation of these rules or applicable statutory provisions, substantial failure to perform the duties of Commission membership, incapacity or disability affecting the ability to perform the duties of Commission membership and other malfeasance or nonfeasance warranting removal.

The Judicial Council shall provide staff for the Commission. The function of the staff is to assist the Commission in the performance of its duties. Staff may attend but shall not participate in deliberations conducted by members of the Commission concerning a retention recommendation.

(1) Questionnaires returned by people who have directly observed the judges' performance;

(2) written comments from the questionnaires;

(3) survey results, unless released by the Commission;

(4) completed self-evaluation forms;

(5) meetings in which the judges are interviewed and the records kept of those meetings;

(6) deliberations concerning a recommendation for or against the retention of any judge;

(7) judicial performance evaluation results when the judicial performance evaluation is used only for self-improvement.;

(8) confidential court data; and

(9) any other information that is not subject to disclosure under the Kansas Open Records Act.

(1) Questionnaires. The Commission shall develop questionnaires that will be used to survey such persons as the Commission determines to be appropriate who have had sufficient experience with a judge or justice to form an opinion about the performance of the judge or justice, such as:

(A) Attorneys who have appeared before or have had professional contact with the judge being evaluated.

(B) Non-attorneys who have appeared before, or had professional contact with the judge being evaluated, such as jurors, litigants, law enforcement personnel, court staff, probation officers, social services caseworkers, CASA volunteers and other resource persons.

(C) Judges who have had professional contact with the judge being evaluated.

(2) Self-evaluations. The Commission shall develop self-evaluation forms that shall be completed by each judge being evaluated. The self-evaluation forms shall ask the judges to evaluate themselves in the same areas as the questionnaires sent to persons who have had professional contact with the judge being evaluated. The Commission may also ask the judges to evaluate themselves in additional areas. Unless previously reported to the judicial administrator, judges of the district court shall list in the self-evaluation the caption and case number of all pending civil matters and motions taken under advisement and not decided in compliance with Supreme Court Rule 166.

The self-evaluation information is for the purpose of requiring the judge to conduct an appraisal of his or her performance and to provide information that may be useful in evaluating the judge. The self-evaluation form shall be signed and dated by the judge and returned to the Commission prior to the release of the judicial performance evaluation report to the judge. Self-evaluation information shall not be quoted in the narrative profile unless the judge agrees.

(1) Statistics and Public Records. The Office of Judicial Administration and district court administrators shall provide to the Commission information relating to the caseload, type of cases and the amount of time the cases were before a judge. The Commission may request other relevant information maintained by the Office of Judicial Administration, the Clerk of the Appellate Courts and district court administrators, who shall provide the requested information. The Commission may also consider information available in any public record.

(2) Interviews. The Commission may interview any judge who is being evaluated. The staff of the Commission will assist in scheduling an interview session for any judge to be interviewed. All efforts to accommodate the schedule of the judge and the Commission will be made. The purpose of the interview is to gather information for use in completing the performance evaluation and, when appropriate, provide the judge with an opportunity to address areas of improvement that have been identified.

Not all judges will be interviewed each time an evaluation is prepared. No judge shall receive a recommendation from the Commission that he or she not be retained unless there has been an opportunity for an interview with the Commission. If a judge who is interviewed wishes to provide additional written materials, the materials should be provided to the Commission prior to the interview.

All meetings of the Commission in which judges are interviewed shall be closed meetings pursuant to K.S.A. 20-3202(b), and the content of the meetings shall be confidential. A confidential record of the action taken at all such meetings shall be kept.

(3) Written Information About Judges. Written information that contains the author's name and address and is received from a person who appeared before or had professional contact with the judge who is the subject of the information may be considered by the Commission. If such information is considered, then the Commission shall inform the judge.

(4) Courtroom Observations. Any Commission member or agent may make on-site visits to observe any judge at any public hearing.

(5) Written Opinions. The Commission may review the written opinions of any judge.

(6) Other Information. The Commission may consider any other information that, in its opinion, assists in evaluation of a judge. If any such information is considered, a copy or a summary of such information shall be provided to the judge, and if an interview is scheduled, then the information shall be provided no later than 10 days prior to the interview scheduled with the judge.

(1) Judicial performance evaluation reports shall be prepared for judges subject to retention elections. The reports shall consist of the narrative profile, the retention recommendation, the survey results and the survey comments. The report shall be provided to the judge at least 45 days before the last date for the judge to declare his or her intent to stand for retention.

(2) Any judge subject to retention elections who is evaluated may respond in writing within 10 days of receipt of the judicial performance evaluation report. The responses shall be directed to the executive director of the Commission. The Commission may schedule an interview with any judge to address his or her response. The Commission shall provide the judge with a written copy of the redraft of any part of the report that is changed.

(3) Judicial performance evaluation reports shall be released to the public as soon as possible following the deadline for judges to declare their intent to stand for retention, but no later than 45 days before the retention election. The version of the judicial performance evaluation reports released to the public shall not include the written survey comments.

(1) Narrative profiles shall contain:

(A) Information identifying the judge;

(B) the judge's judicial assignments;

(C) the number of years on the bench;

(D) the commission's retention recommendation;

(E) any comments explaining reasons for such recommendation; and

(F) language in the narrative profile stating the judge's position, if the judge receives a "Do Not Retain" recommendation and requests that position be included.

(2) Narrative profiles may also include:

(A) The vote count the commission recorded for each judge;

(B) a statement of the groups of respondents surveyed, the percentage of responses received from each surveyed group that recommended that the judge be retained, the percentage of responses received from each group that had no opinion as to the retention of the judge and the percentage of responses received from each group that recommended that the judge not be retained;

(C) the judge's strengths and weaknesses, which may include emphasis on areas of exemplary performance or areas of significant poor performance;

(D) information concerning the judge's professional association activities, recent awards and honors, service and volunteer work, and other contributions to the community;

(E) any additional information that may be of assistance to the public in making an informed voting decision on any judge; and

(F) language in the narrative profile stating the judge's position, if the judge receives a "Retain" recommendation and requests that position be included.

(1) The performance issues identified in the evaluation are attributable to the nature or high number of cases on a judge's docket or caseload, other judicial duties that prevent the judge from appropriately managing his or her cases in a timely manner. This may be particularly true for judges who, when appointed, may inherit a significantly high number of cases that cannot be managed quickly.

(2) The Commission believes that the judge's performance will improve significantly with additional experience on the bench and with a commitment to improve judicial skills, based on the judge's self-improvement plan and other available information.

(3) The agent administering and compiling the surveys and the Commission determine that an insufficient number of responses was received to constitute a valid sample size.

(4) The Commission received information under Rule 6 pertaining to the evaluation that it believes justifies a "Retain" recommendation. In such case, the Commission shall in its narrative profile specify the information and explain why it believes the information justifies retention.

(1) General Distribution. The Commission may make the information, or a summary of the information, available in a printed medium at courthouses, libraries, retail and other practical outlets.

(2) Newspaper. The information, or a summary of the information, may be provided to newspapers and other print media.

(3) Radio and Television. The Commission may utilize public service announcement air time on radio and television stations. Public service announcements will direct the listener to the availability of the information.

(4) Internet. The Commission shall post narrative profiles, retention recommendations and survey results, if released, on its Web site.

(5) Paid Advertising. The Commission may purchase paid advertising as it deems appropriate.