NCJ Number
91244
Journal
Judicature Volume: 67 Issue: 2 Dated: (August 1983) Pages: 68-77
Date Published
1983
Length
10 pages
Annotation
This study examines the retention elections of two Wyoming supreme court justices to provide insight into how retention elections play a role in balancing judicial independence and judicial accountability.
Abstract
In Wyoming, the governor makes appointments to the bench from a list of three qualified nominees submitted by the Judicial Nominating Commission. Each justice is subsequently required to stand for retention at the time of the general election following his/her first year of service. Justices are retained for 8-year terms. For a judicial officer to be retained in office, a majority of all those voting must vote 'yes.' The retention election is noncompetitive. This analysis of data from the 1980 Wyoming Election Year Survey focused on three aspects of the voters' participation in the retention elections: (1) a comparison of respondents' voting between candidates, (2) information levels and their effect on retention choices reported by the voters, and (3) specific reasons given by voters for their voting decisions. Eight out of 10 voters reported identical decisions on the two merit retention propositions, suggesting that the voting choices were not random decisions. Further, the analysis found that those with no information on the judges were most likely to abstain in retention elections; those with some information were most likely to support retention; while those with the greatest amount of information were most likely to vote against retention. Les than half of those voting 'yes' acted upon what they perceived as positive criteria favorable to the justices. 'No' voters, on the other hand, offered fairly specific criteria for their decision, such as bad job performance, too long on the bench, poor system, and negative personal knowledge of the candidates. Some implications from the findings are discussed. Tabular data are provided.