Judges and Judiciary
Aug. 12, 2016
Commission on Judicial Performance to face audit
A state legislative committee on Wednesday approved an audit of the California Commission on Judicial Performance.
Daily Journal Staff Writer
SACRAMENTO — A state legislative committee on Wednesday approved an audit of the California Commission on Judicial Performance.
The first audit of the 56-year-old agency was approved without debate as part of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee's consent calendar.
The state auditor will now conduct an inquiry long sought by activists who say the CJP operates in secret and disciplines judges less often than equivalent agencies in other states.
These efforts gained new momentum in the wake of a six-month sentence given to a former Stanford University swimmer who sexually assaulted an unconscious woman.
Even critics of that ruling don't all agree that an audit of the CJP is the correct response, and some are instead pursuing a recall campaign against Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky.
"The commission welcomes the opportunity to demonstrate that we have been good stewards of the state's funds," said CJP spokeswoman Victoria Henley in a statement.
She also defended the commission's "rigorous standards of judicial conduct" and noted that 90 percent of decisions reviewed by the state Supreme Court are upheld.
The committee received separate audit requests in July from Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Assemblywoman Catharine Baker, R-San Ramon, an attorney who sits on JLAC.
Baker's July 15 letter centered on the "unfolding aftermath of Judge Aaron Persky's sentencing in the Brock Turner rape case."
"While the sentence in the case is not the subject of the audit request, it illuminated the lack of publicly available information regarding previous private actions against a judge," Baker added.
Jackson and Baker eventually combined their request into a single Aug. 3 request also signed by Assemblyman Mark Stone, D-Scotts Valley, who chairs the Assembly Judiciary Committee, and Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia, D-Bell Gardens, chair of the Assembly Accountability and Adminstrative Review Committee.
The final letter did not mention Persky.
Michele Dauber, a Stanford Law School professor who is trying to organize a campaign to recall Persky next year, said the CJP is best suited for disciplining judges "who take bribes or fail to disclose conflicts of interest."
A recall election, she said, allows the public to use existing rules to unseat a judge whose "bias in cases involving sexual violence against women" makes him "unfit for office."
"We are not accusing him of a crime," Dauber added. "We are saying he is biased in a way that denies people justice."
Tamir Sukkary, a Sierra College political science adjunct professor who has been calling for an audit of the CJP for years, said the California Code of Judicial Ethics clearly bars bias by judges. He said more transparent oversight would also allow people to more easily look into any previous complaints against Persky.
"Because of Persky, people are beginning to realize how secretly the CJP operates," Sukkary said.
An analysis from the state auditor's office said the audit will examine who within the commission decides whether someone has broken the code of ethics and how consistently it follows its own investigative standards. The report estimated the audit will cost $492,480 but did not specify a completion date.
Meanwhile, Persky was back in headlines this week, this time over reports that in 2015 he sentenced a man to four days in jail for possessing child pornography.
malcolm_maclachlan@dailyjournal.com
Malcolm Maclachlan
malcolm_maclachlan@dailyjournal.com
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