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The Supreme Court of New Mexico formally created the Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission (JPEC) in 1997 to:
However, the history of the Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission actually goes back to April 1990, when the Supreme Court Judicial Planning Committee recommended taking steps to create a Judicial Performance Evaluation Program. Working through a subcommittee chaired by Judge A. Joseph Alarid of the New Mexico Court of Appeals, the Judicial Planning Committee recommended establishing a pilot program for judicial evaluation along the lines of a Colorado program in 1991. In 1988, New Mexico voters approved a constitutional amendment adopting a merit selection process for nominating appellate, district and metropolitan court judges. All appellate, district, and metropolitan court judges who have previously been elected in a partisan election are required to stand for retention in order to retain their office. For several years, the Supreme Court tried to get funding for a judicial evaluation program. In 1995, the Administrative Office of the Courts received approximately $30,000 from the New Mexico Legislature to set up a judicial performance evaluation pilot program to evaluate the judicial performance of District Judges in the Third Judicial District (Doña Ana County) and in the Ninth Judicial District (Curry and Roosevelt Counties). On January 29, 1997, the Judicial Performance Evaluation Pilot Study Commission submitted its Final Report to the Supreme Court. Based on the committee’s research and experience, the commission concluded that a statewide implementation of a judicial performance evaluation program for district and metropolitan court judges was both desirable and feasible. The Supreme Court entered an Order dated February 12, 1997, establishing a permanent, statewide Judicial Performance Evaluation Program to evaluate the performance of district and metropolitan court judges who are subject to periodic retention elections and to develop and conduct an experimental program to evaluate the performance of judges and justices of the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. On April 28, 1999, the Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission (JPEC) issued its Appellate Judicial Performance Evaluation Pilot Study Report to the Supreme Court, recommending implementation of an appellate judicial performance evaluation program. Later that same year, the original Supreme Court order was amended to include a statewide appellate judicial performance evaluation program. Due to concern over the impact of crime and the growth of criminal and civil litigation, public attention has increasingly focused upon the operation of the courts and judicial performance. Public perception of the judiciary as a whole sometimes is colored by the results in a few high profile cases. Because of the large number of judges who appear on the retention ballot, it is increasingly difficult for individual voters, who are often without adequate or specific information, to make informed decision concerning the performance of individual judges. That is why the JPEC takes seriously its role of providing information on judges standing for retention to the public prior to an election. Since it was formally established and fully authorized, the JPEC has issued evaluations on hundreds of justices and judges standing for retention at the statewide, district and county levels. The 2006 election year marked the sixth official election in which the Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission made recommendations to voters on whether to retain judges and justices standing for retention. This program remains important because of New Mexico’s constitutional requirement that judges standing for retention elections must receive at least 57 percent voter approval to remain on the bench.
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