Rating the Judges : L.A. County Bar Assn. Defends Controversial Practice of Issuing Judicial Candidate Evaluations

For 10 years, the pre-primary pattern has become a ritual: The Los Angeles County Bar Assn. announces its evaluations of judicial candidates, and the candidates termed “not qualified” or merely “qualified” rather than “well qualified” denounce the rating system as unfair and politically motivated.

Last week, the Bar Assn. renewed the controversy by declaring Maxine Thomas, presiding judge of the Los Angeles Municipal Court, as “not qualified” in her bid for Superior Court. Eight of 24 other judicial candidates--four lawyers, two other Municipal Court judges and one commissioner and a Superior Court referee--also were rated “not qualified.”

Despite charges by those candidates that the rating system is unfair, Bar Assn. officials continue to defend the process.

“Compared to other systems that might be available, it’s as fair a one as there is,” said Donald M. Wessling, chairman of the Judicial Evaluation Committee and a member of the group since 1980.

Headed Panel

“It is the kind of project that lawyers ought to operate for themselves and the community, and if I have my way about it, we will keep doing it,” said Charles S. Vogel, Bar Assn. president, who headed the committee in 1980.

“I think the public does appreciate having the evaluations of candidates who are typically not known well throughout the county, and the evaluation process contributes to the encouragement of good candidates to run, because they know with it, they have a chance to be elected,” Vogel said.

The 19,000-member association first experimented with evaluating judges in 1976 and finalized the system in 1978. The idea was to inform voters to help them vote knowledgeably in obscure, nonpartisan races that rarely have any issues.

A former plebiscite, in which association members voted for their choices in each court race and publicized the results, was abandoned as an unfair popularity contest that provided little information to voters.

Wessling believes that the complex local evaluation system is unique.

Automatic Action

The New York City Bar Assn. does attempt to evaluate judicial candidates but automatically rates a candidate “not approved” if he refuses to cooperate with the evaluation committee. Los Angeles rules state that all candidates will be rated, even if they thumb their noses at the committee, which happened once in 1980 and once in 1982.

The system has some similarities to the California State Bar Commission on Judicial Nominees’ Evaluation, which makes statewide appraisals of judicial candidates whom the governor considers for appointment. Wessling claims that the Los Angeles system is more thorough, because it involves more people evaluating fewer would-be judges.

A committee of at least 20 (usually about 60 in practice and 56 this year) representing a cross-section of lawyers from private and government practice rates candidates based on information collected by subcommittees of at least two people (this year five).

Candidates fill in a 12-page questionnaire about their education, experience, arrests or disciplinary proceedings, health, publications and honors and names of lawyers and judges who know their work personally. Subcommittees query those familiar with the candidate and interview each candidate to determine integrity and character; judgment and intellectual capacity; fairness, experience, industry and diligence; judicial temperament, including courtesy in court, professional ability and knowledge of the law; general reputation, and civic and community activities.

Given Opportunity

Candidates who receive less than “well-qualified” tentative ratings--17 this year--are given an opportunity to talk with the committee before ratings are finalized.

Brief explanations are provided for “not-qualified” ratings, but no specific accusations are listed. Thomas’ notation, for example, was that “in the committee’s opinion, she lacks the judicial ability as a trial judge and judgment necessary to be a judge of the Superior Court.”

Over the years, this lack of specifics has drawn the greatest criticism from candidates--even from some ranked “well qualified.” One sitting judge ranked “not qualified” a few elections ago complained that “the vilest of criminals” have greater due process rights than judicial candidates vaguely accused by the local Bar Assn.

Wessling and Vogel say the problem is one of confidentiality. Wessling said that lawyers asked about judicial candidates who potentially will handle their cases would never offer criticism if they were identified. Because criticism often involves a certain case, he added, revealing facts to provide the specific accusation that candidates say they want could identity the critic.

Public Job

“There isn’t any notion of due process here,” Vogel said. “They (candidates) are not being prosecuted or having property taken away. They are asking for a public job and for the public to repose confidence in them. They should be willing to submit to this fair rating process.”

Wessling gives less credence to charges that the committee or its evaluation system is politically influenced, and Vogel flatly dismisses such criticism as “hogwash.”

Wessling said he did not know the political orientation of his committee members, because he considered that irrelevant in nonpartisan races. Members are forbidden from endorsing or campaigning for or contributing money to any judicial candidate.

Although volunteers are accepted on the committee, Wessling said, nobody could plan to give a bad rating to an enemy or a good rating to a friend because:

1--The committee is set up about four months before candidates file for office, so it is hard to know just who will be running.

2--A member has no certainty of getting on the subcommittee that will evaluate any specific candidate.

3--Even if a biased person wound up evaluating his targeted candidate, he would have to present solid evidence to persuade the full committee to grant the evaluation he sought.

Perhaps the most jarring thing about the evaluations to the public they are designed to benefit is that sitting judges can be rated “not qualified.”

One explanation, Wessling pointed out, is that the association is trying to evaluate candidates for the office they are seeking--quite often a Municipal Court judge who is trying to be elected to the more demanding Superior Court.

The larger explanation, he said, is that: “The appointive process doesn’t always work perfectly well. People of promise don’t always fulfill it. There is a difference between being a good lawyer and being a good judge, and not all good lawyers make good judges.”