Where can you find information on your local and appeals court judges up for retention? Check out the official recommendations site [2]for the Colorado Commissions on Judicial Performance. The Commission provides a thumbs-up, thumbs-down or "No opinion" recommendation on each judge up for retention after reviewing a wide variety of information. This includes survey results from attorneys and from "non-attorney particpants." The "non-attorney" group is composed of defendants, plaintiffs, law enforcement, employees, jurors, and victims. The Commissions also consider information obtained through public hearings, personal interviews with Judges, written self-evaluations from the Judges, and courtroom observations. Only two judges did not receive affirmative recommendations for retention. One is Pueblo County Judge Mary T. Anderson [3] who received a "No Opinion" recommendation. The report finds that " [a] lack of compassion for those of lower socio-economic level is very noticeable in her courtroom. " You can read the entire report here [4]. (pdf) The second judge not affirmatively recommended for retention is Chaffee County Judge William P. Alderton [5] in the 11th Judicial District. He also received a "No Opinion" recommendation. In his case, there were divergent views of the judge provided by attorneys and non-attorney participants in the survey, and the Commission did not feel it had enough information to make a recommendation. His full Judicial Peformance Report is here [6]. I highly recommend reading the full commission reports of the Judges included on your ballot. A lot of work goes into them and they often are quite illuminating.