NewsBeat

February 2017 NewsBeat 15 up with the idea of drafting a questionnaire we would send to the members of our local bar association. As I remember, we had about 10 judges at the time, and the bar association had about 90 members. We looked up the bar's membership list and went to work to develop a questionnaire. I wish I still had the original questionnaire and could provide it here. And I wish I could lay my hands on the stories we produced. But this was in the days before digital archives, so I can't. What are the parameters? As I remember, Charlie and I came up with five or six main parameters of judicial performance that seemed most important. As I recall, these were the main ones: • Impartiality, including gender, race, age, ethnicity, and defense versus prosecution. • Punctuality, efficiency, and orderly oversight of the courtroom. • Fairness and balance in sentencing, determining bond, and settling procedural disputes. • Courteous and professional treatment of plaintiffs, defendants, attorneys, juries, and people in the courtroom. • Knowledge and appropriate application of the law. Each performance parameter was briefly described in a sentence or two, and participants were asked to rate the judges on a scale of one to five, from very poor to excellent. We also provided space for written comments on each parameter. The survey included a ratings sheet for each of the 10 judges. At the end of the survey, we provided space — labeled optional and confidential — for the survey participant to provide his or her name. In my cover letter, I asked attorneys to answer honestly and candidly. I asked them to recuse themselves from completing the survey if they did not frequently handle cases in court. And I asked attorneys to refrain from rating any judges in whose courtrooms they did not have direct experience. I also pledged the newspaper would not reveal the survey respondents' identities to the public or judges. High participation As I recall, at least 70 bar association members returned the survey, completed either in full or for one or more of the judges. Only two provided their names — a mark of singular courage and honesty, in my opinion. As the results poured in, we read them with amazement. One felony-court judge was revealed in repeated comments to be extremely tough on defendants. Several attorneys labeled him "the hanging judge," and one called him "an avenging angel for his conservative Catholic morality." Another was revealed in multiple comments as uniformly lenient, and a sucker for sob stories and psychologist witnesses for the defense. His sentences were said to be often too soft for the crimes committed. And several respondents reported a dubious gambit used by some defendants to avoid the "hanging judge." They would hire an attorney who rented office space in a building owned by that judge, and the judge would disqualify himself on their cases because of his business connection with the attorney. Then the case would often go to the lenient judge. Another judge was criticized as indecisive and unsure of the law. And, some said, drunk on the bench. Immediate results Another judge was repeatedly criticized for working only a precise 10-to-3 schedule every day, regardless of the backlog of cases. After the survey went out and the legal community started talking about it, that judge called our publisher. He asked if the publisher would agree to delete him from the results if he resigned before the stories were printed. The publisher said no. The judge resigned anyway. Several judges got uniformly high ratings, several got middling ratings, and a few got plenty of criticism. We published the results with responses and comments from the judges. A couple of them complained — mostly not for publication — that it wasn't fair to ask lawyers to rate them anonymously. In my opinion, that was the only way to do the survey. Given the tremendous power judges hold over attorneys in the courtroom, requiring identification would have silenced most of the truth that needed to come out. Even before we published the results, the legal and governmental community was buzzing, and the lazy judge quit. Then our stories reverberated across the community, triggering discussion everywhere and more than a little indignation. A few years later, after I had left the community, the newspaper repeated the survey process and again published the results. It appeared the original project had left a lasting mark; the results showed a generally higher level of performance among the judges. Who holds the judges in your community accountable? You can — and it doesn't take a large staff or months of work to do it. Steve Gray is vice president of strategy and innovation at Morris Communications, based in Augusta, Georgia, USA. He previously led the American Press Institute (API) Newspaper Next program. — Reprinted from INMA

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