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Colorado voters are facing a crush in the Nov. 5 election questions about judicial custody on the ballot, which can be intimidating. How should voters approach them?
Judges in Colorado are appointed to the state and county courts, rather than elected. But they will later appear on the ballot if they are eligible for retention — allowing voters to decide whether they should continue to serve.
The system has its critics, in part because it is rare for a judge to be fired by voters. One factor is that the names are unfamiliar to the average voter, making an informed decision difficult.
But it’s also because it’s rare for citizen review boards, created to help fill that information gap, to find that a judge isn’t meeting performance standards. (Some lawyers with turbulent tenures may also quietly decide not to file for retention when their terms expire.)
Here you will find a guide to help you go through these voting questions.
The state is offering help to voters
Colorado has an evaluation process That provides information and evaluations about judges. Impartial committees review all judges participating in the ballot and provide simple recommendations on each Colorado Supreme Court justice or justice eligible for retention, along with more information if you’re willing to dig in.
All but one of the 116 judges reviewed by state and district-level committees this year were found to have met performance standards. The lone outlier, Judge Angela Roff of Garfield County Court, did not meet performance standards because “the majority of the committee felt that its legal knowledge and administrative performance needed to be further developed.”
The process has drawn criticism because the evaluations lack information that could be more useful to some voters. (More on that later.)
In 2022, all judges were found to have met the performance standards. In 2020, two judges were found not to have met performance standards: Adams County District Court Judge Tomee Crespin, who protested the rating but subsequently lose her retention vote and her job; and Sedgwick County Judge James Craig Dolezal, who still won retention. Two years earlier, voters rejected two judges — the only ones to be rated “Not Meeting Performance Standards” by the committees.
How Judges Get Their Jobs in Colorado
In most states, judges face elections in one way or another — sometimes in nasty partisan races. But Colorado’s system, at least for judges in state-controlled courts, consists entirely of appointments.
The governor fills vacancies in the courts by appointing judges of the Supreme Court, judges of the Court of Appeal, and judges of district and district courts. The only exception is the City and County of Denver, where the city’s mayor appoints the Denver County Court judges (but not the Denver District Court judges).
Before an appointment is made, the nominating committees, composed of attorney and non-attorney members, vet the candidates and recommend at least two candidates. Vacancies at the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court require a minimum of three candidates.
Colorado’s system has been in place for about 50 years and is intended to prevent judges from soliciting donations and running political campaigns. However, the role of voters in deciding retention issues has long been a challenge.
“In 1988, the Legislature answered the question of how to give voters more information about judges who needed to be retained, so they created judicial performance commissions,” Kent Wagner, executive director of the state Office of Judicial Performance Evaluation, told JS in 2020. “We’ve been doing that ever since, with 231 commissioners (serving on panels) evaluating the state of Colorado’s judges — and really just serving to give voters some information about judges’ performance.”
When do judges appear on the ballot?
Voters play a first role two years after an appointmentdeciding whether to retain — or dismiss — recent appointments to the state’s superior courts and to lower courts in the judicial district or county in which they reside.
Thereafter, judges must be re-retained every four years (for district judges), six years (for district judges) or eight years (for Court of Appeal judges). Supreme Court justices require retention every ten years.
How many judges are on your ballot will vary
This year, three Colorado Supreme Court justices and five Court of Appeals judges are slated to be retained will appear on all ballots statewide.
The number of district and county judges you vote for varies depending on where you live. In Denver, which has its own district court (one of 22 in the entire state, though the state will be 23rd in 2025), voters will decide retention issues for eight district judges and 10 district judges.
Voters in Huerfano and Las Animas counties will not vote for any judge because neither district judges are eligible for retention.
How to browse the judges
To take the easy route, simply visit the website for the Colorado Office of Judicial Performance Evaluation and select your county to see the judges on your ballot, along with their ratings (all favorable this year).
To learn more about the judges, you can check out both the state website and the website the state’s blue book voter guidea voting information booklet sent to each voter before each election contains the complete evaluations for each judge or judge on your local ballot.
How to read each evaluation
The evaluations generally follow a four-paragraph format, although there is some variation in the way information is presented. The first paragraph always specifies the advice of the performance committee and its vote distribution.
Other sections provide information about the judge’s court, his or her background, and the results of surveys of attorneys and others who have experience with the judge. That information may include negative impressions of the judge or concerns raised by the committee in the past, as well as how well the judge handled them.
It is not unusual to hear, for example, that one judge is considered “intelligent, fair and prepared for oral arguments,” or that another judge is given the impression that he favors prosecution in criminal cases or takes too long to make written decisions to take. If a judge has been placed on an improvement plan, you learn that too.
If the committee recommended against holding, the judge’s response would be included at the end.
What should I do with this information?
It’s up to you, as voters weigh such information in different ways. Some may not appreciate the kind of criticism leveled by lawyers, while others may be more interested in trying to discern a judge’s bias or political leanings. (Also the State Assessment Agency asks for feedback from anyone who has experience with a judge.)
Who carries out the evaluations?
The Judicial Performance Commission for Statewide Judges and Appellate Judges consists of eleven members. Ten-member committees evaluate district and provincial judges in each of the 22 judicial districts. The panels consist of six non-lawyers, with the rest of the spots filled by lawyers. Appointments are made by the governor, the state’s chief judge, the speaker of the House of Representatives, the president of the Senate, and the minority party leaders of each chamber.
The committees solicit input on the judges’ performance by sending surveys to attorneys and others familiar with the judges.
Possible shortcomings of the process
Some voters don’t find the evaluations useful because of what they don’t include, including judges’ disciplinary records. Colorado keeps complaints and any resulting disciplinary actions confidential, except in rare cases when a judge is publicly reprimanded or fired by the state Supreme Court.
The Judicial Integrity Project has pushed for years for Colorado to include disciplinary records in the commissions’ evaluations, along with other information, including criminal histories. The group has also advocated for the addition of public testimony to the commissions process.
Note: This guide has been modified and updated based on stories JS has published in previous election cycles.
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