It can be tough, evaluating whether our public officials are doing their job or not. Ask a Democrat about a Republican politician, and you get one answer. Ask a Republican about a Democratic politician, and you'll get another. The problem is that most of the time politics color our perspective.
When it comes to Missouri's non-partisan judges, voters have an exceptional source of unbiased information about whether each judge deserves another term on the bench. The Missouri Judicial Performance Evaluation Committees, which were created several years ago by Missouri Supreme Court rule, offer an independent, unbiased, thorough evaluation of every non-partisan judge who will be standing for retention this November.
The committees are composed of lawyers and non-lawyers in equal number. To evaluate the judges, they rely on lawyer evaluations, juror evaluations, written opinions and orders. They weigh each of these sources of information for each judge, considering whether or not to issue a recommendation for voters to retain that judge for another term.
In addition to their recommendations, the committees provide the public with copies of the material and surveys they used to reach their recommendation. Click here for the recommendations and complete evaluations and discussion of each judge.
