Missouri voters in November will be asked to retain two state Supreme Court judges and two appeals court judges for 12-year terms - and a special panel formed to study those judges recommends that voters keep them as judges.
The Supreme Court judges on the Nov. 4 statewide ballot are Jefferson City native Paul C. Wilson, seeking his first full term after Gov. Jay Nixon appointed him to the high court in December 2012, and Laura Denvir Stith, who is seeking a second full term.
In a 14-question survey of lawyers who've argued cases before each judge, with answers determined by a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), Stith's lowest average rating was a 3.91 and her highest a 4.44.
Wilson's ratings ranged from a low of 3.83 to a high of 4.28.
Mid-Missouri voters in Cole, Callaway, Boone, Moniteau, Morgan and Miller counties also will vote for two judges on the appeals court's Kansas City-based Western District: A. Rex Gabbert and Lisa White Hardwick.
Gabbert's low was a 3.99, and his high was 4.46. Hardwick's low was 3.93; her highest rating was 4.41.
Mid-Missouri voters in Osage and Gasconade counties also will vote for Angela Turner Quigless and Lisa Van Amburg on the appeals court's St. Louis-based Eastern District.
Quigless' ratings ranged from 3.30 to 4.02. Van Amburg's ratings ranged from 4.01 to 4.48.
And Mid-Missouri voters in Maries and Camden counties also will vote for Springfield-based Southern District appeals court judges Nancy Steffan Rahmeyer and Mary Sheffield.
Rahmeyer was scored from 3.78 to 4.34. Sheffield's averages went from 4.00 to 4.42.
Details of the questions asked, the number of people answering them and the average scores for each question, for each judge, can be found online at www.YourMissouriJudges.org. All 50 of the judges in the survey were recommended for retention.
"We're here to provide information to voters, to make sure that Missouri citizens have good judges who are fair, impartial and skilled," Reuben Shelton of St. Louis, the Missouri Bar's new president, said Wednesday. "These recommendations are the result of extensive evaluations, conducted in order to determine whether or not to recommend retention based on merit."
He said the evaluations look at many aspects"of a judge's work, "including whether, or not, a judge treats people fairly, displays impartiality, is prepared for court, (issues) decisions based on evidence and arguments, gives clear reasons for their rulings, is competent in the law, weighs all evidence fairly and impartially before rendering decisions, and writes clear opinions."
Dale Doerhoff - a Jefferson City lawyer who chairs the statewide Performance Evaluation Committee - said the Bar began making yes-or-no retention recommendations in 1948.
"It started out with lawyers being simply asked, "Should Judge Jones be retained?'" Doerhoff explained. "By 1990, it became apparent that voters wanted more information than just an up-or-down recommendation from the lawyers."
In the two dozen years since, he said, Missouri has revised its judicial evaluation process several times.
Both Bar officials acknowledge the survey information is different from other elections.
"In a partisan election, you're going to get a biased, one-sided point of view," Shelton said. "Under the judicial performance evaluations in the Nonpartisan Court Plan, you're going to get a more objective view about the judges involved."