Item B: Judicial Evaluation Committee Report

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The process adopted for the evaluation involved five meetings between February and May, and included five components: . Select a set of criter(~ to use for the evaluation; · Review court activity data and performance indicators for the years 2002-2006, including complaints and defendant survey responses, and the responses to the 2004 informal evaluation; · Survey different populations of municipal court participants for evaluation input; . Discuss survey results with Judge Allen and get his perspective on court performance and issues, including what has changed or improved from the 2002 evaluation; and . Use the survey results, discussion with Judge Allen, court activity data and performance indicators, and our own municipal court experience to prepare and present an evaluation report to the City Council. EVALUATION CRITERIA We were impressed to learn that Eugene had a judicial performance evaluation process since the 1980's. This is unusual, as judicial evaluations even at the state and federa11eve1 have only been discussed in concept for the past 15 years. Judicial evaluations at any level are rare. For the 2006 evaluation, standards approved by the City Council in the past were taken into consideration. The committee also took advantage of work done by the Federal Bureau of Justice Administration (BJA) and the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) that developed a set of model judicial performance standards now adopted in several state court systems. We reviewed the criteria used by the evaluation committees in 1998 and 2002, which was largely based on the BJA/NCSC model standards applicable to judges, and overall felt the criteria was appropriate for our use in the 2006 evaluation. By using approximately the same criteria, we felt it would facilitate comparisons with the prior evaluations. The 31 standards were organized into six job element sections, shown below: 2006 Judicial Performance Evaluation Criteria Section I. Legal Knowledge and Ability in Judicial Role 1. The judge's actions in court demonstrate knowledge of substantive law. 2. The judge's actions in court demonstrate knowledge of the rules of evidence. 3. The judge's actions in court demonstrate knowledge of rules of procedure. 4. The judge makes decisions based on law, facts, and sound legal reasoning. 5. The judge's sentencing decisions demonstrate knowledge of sentencing laws and appropriate use of available sanctions. Section II. Case and Courtroom Management 6. The judge complies with recognized guidelines for timely case processing, keeping current with incoming case10ad.