Utah Admin. Code R597-6-2 - Survey

(1) For judicial performance evaluations, the commission shall:

(a) conduct surveys as described in Section R597-6-1; and

(b) post on its website the survey questionnaires upon which the judge shall be evaluated at the beginning of the survey cycle.

(2) For judicial performance evaluations, the commission may:

(a) conduct periodic reviews to ensure compliance with administrative rules governing the survey process; and

(b) consider narrative survey comments that cannot be reduced to a numerical score.

(3) Within ten business days of the end of the evaluation cycle, the clerk for the judge or the Administrative Office of the Courts shall identify attorneys who have appeared before the judge during the evaluation cycle a minimum of one hearing or trial.

(4) Identified attorneys may be included in the attorney survey pool for the evaluated judge, except if the attorney has been:

(a) confirmed as a judge during the evaluation cycle; or

(b) referred by the judge to the Office of Professional Conduct for allegations of misconduct.

(5) Within ten business days of the end of the evaluation cycle, the Office of Professional Conduct shall identify any judges who have referred an attorney for allegations of misconduct.

(6) A third-party contractor engaged as a surveyor by the commission shall:

(a) design the survey to comply with generally accepted principles of surveying;

(b) determine the maximum number of survey requests to send to a survey respondent, except that no survey respondent shall receive more than nine survey requests;

(c) identify the number of attorneys most likely to produce a response level yielding reliability at a 95% confidence level with a margin of error of +/- 5% for each judge who is the subject of a survey;

(d) survey any attorneys with one trial appearance before the evaluated judge, in accordance with Subsection R597-6-2(6)(b);

(e) consider any attorneys with at least five total appearances before the evaluated judge as eligible to be surveyed;

(f) supplement the survey pool with other attorneys who have appeared before the judge during the evaluation cycle if the attorney appearance list from the Administrative Office of the Courts contains an insufficient number of attorneys with one trial appearance or at least five total appearances before the evaluated judge to achieve the required confidence level;

(g) distribute the surveys to the appropriate survey respondent;

(h) redact any written comments from survey responses to remove any information that identifies the person commenting and deliver the redacted comments to the commission; and

(i) redact any written comments from survey responses to remove any information that discloses the identity of any crime victims and deliver the redacted comments to the commission.

(7) The surveyor may distribute surveys in paper form to those survey respondents who do not have access to email.

(8) Before the jury is dismissed, the bailiff or clerk in charge of a jury shall:

(a) collect email addresses from jurors;

(b) collect street addresses from jurors who do not have an email address; and

(c) send all such addresses to the surveyor within 24 hours of collection.

(9) Survey respondents eligible to receive a survey include:

(a) attorneys, as described in Subsections R597-6-2(3) and R597-6-2(4);

(b) jurors who participate in jury deliberation, where applicable;

(c) court staff who have worked with the judge including:

(i) judicial assistants;

(ii) case managers;

(iii) clerks of court;

(iv) trial court executives;

(v) interpreters;

(vi) bailiffs;

(vii) law clerks;

(viii) central staff attorneys;

(ix) juvenile probation and intake officers;

(x) other courthouse staff, as appropriate;

(xi) Administrative Office of the Courts staff; and

(xii) treatment providers for specialty courts;

(d) juvenile court professionals, where applicable:

(i) Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS) child protection services workers;

(ii) DCFS case workers;

(iii) Division of Juvenile Justice and Youth Services (JJYS) Observation and Assessment Staff;

(iv) JJYS case managers;

(v) JJYS secure care staff; and

(vi) others who provide substantive professional services on a regular basis to the juvenile court.

(10) Any survey respondent may submit a public comment in writing pursuant to Subsection78A-12-203(2)(e), regardless of the submission of a survey response containing an anonymous narrative comment.

(11) The raw form of survey results consists of quantitative survey data that contributes to the minimum score on the judicial performance survey.

(12) The summary form of survey results consists of quantitative survey data in aggregated form.

Notes

Utah Admin. Code R597-6-2

Adopted by Utah State Bulletin Number 2024-10, effective 5/14/2024