NCJ Number
133857
Date Published
1991
Length
45 pages
Annotation
The U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois recently completed a pilot Judicial Evaluation Project under the auspices of the Judicial Conference Committee on the Judicial Branch.
Abstract
The project involved voluntary confidential evaluations with the specific goal of judicial self-improvement. The Central District of Illinois was selected because of the concerted interest of district judges. Although the pilot project was originally designed to include only district court judges, magistrate and bankruptcy judges volunteered to participate as well. Aimed at gathering responses that would foster judicial self-improvement, project questionnaires focused on five areas of evaluation criteria: integrity, judicial temperament, legal ability, decisiveness, and diligence. Responses of all participating judges but one to the evaluation project were favorable. Thirteen judges said the judicial evaluation was extremely helpful, four said it was somewhat helpful, one said it was of limited use, and one said it was not helpful. It is noted that primary concerns of courts considering the conduct of judicial evaluations involve costs and the ability to keep results confidential. Attachments contain the project questionnaires. 3 references and 1 table