3 Maricopa County judges in trouble; Montgomery appearing safe in judicial retention vote

Voters appeared to be keeping most of its judges up for retention this year, including Supreme Court Justice Bill Montgomery, with almost all votes counted on Monday.

Despite low performance evaluation scores, Montgomery pulled ahead in his bid to stay on the state Supreme Court, with 55% of votes in favor of retention.

Statewide, five Arizona Court of Appeals judges and two other Arizona Supreme Court Judges led in favor of retention.

But in the Maricopa County Superior Court Judges' retention elections, three of 47 were were trailing, and their losing margins narrowed Monday. Superior Court Judge Stephen Hopkins, who was the only judge not to meet state performance standards this year was losing handily with the largest number of votes against retention.

Election Day coverage: Arizona election results

Superior Court Judge Hopkins would need about 250,000 votes to flip votes in favor of retention while Howard Sukenic needed 180,000. Rusty Crandell had the narrowest gap to span, trailing 36,000 votes to keep his job.

The prospect of Maricopa County voters possibly removing two or three superior court judges would be historic, if results hold. Since 2000, they have only removed one.

Countywide, no more than about 14,500 miscellaneous batches of votes still remain to be counted.

State Supreme Court justices, along with judges on the Court of Appeals and most county superior courts, face voters after serving their first two years in office. If they are retained, and the vast majority are, higher court judges will be back up on the ballot every six years and trial court judges every four years.

Every time a judge is up for retention, the Arizona Commission on Judicial Performance Review evaluates them. The commission, composed of 34 members, surveys jurors, witnesses, attorneys, judges and court staff to determine if a judge “meets” or “doesn’t meet” five performance standards.

The standards include legal ability, integrity, communication skills, judicial temperament and administrative performance.

In 2022, only Hopkins failed to get a majority of “meets standards” from commissioners. Only seven out of 26 commissioners felt that he met the performance standards.

In June 2020, Hopkins was reprimanded by the Arizona Commission on Judicial Conduct after a prosecutor and public defender filed a complaint for unprofessional behavior.

The other 46 Maricopa County Superior Court judges on the ballot passed the performance review standards that are posted on the Judicial Performance Review website www.AZCourts.gov.

The commission publishes its votes and survey details on its Judicial Performance Reports page, where users will find a list of judges and justices based on jurisdiction.

Voting on Arizona judges: Here's what to know about the judges up for retention in Maricopa County

Appeals Court judges

Voters statewide were coasting toward keeping all five judges from the Arizona Court of Appeals: Cynthia Bailey, Michael Brown, Kent Cattani, David Gass and Steven Williams.

All the appellate judges in this race met the performance review standards, according to the commission. Bailey received the lowest survey score given to any of the five judges, which was a 78% in legal ability from the attorney survey.

Brown is the longest-serving judge among the group, appointed in 2007, while Bailey is the newest, having been appointed in 2020.

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Arizona Supreme Court justices

Three Supreme Court justices were on the ballot up for retention in Arizona: Montgomery, James Beene and Ann Timmer.

While all three justices met the performance review standards, Montgomery was the only one to miss 100% approval from the commission, making him the first judge not to receive full support since the process began. He received two votes indicating that he did not meet the standards and received the lowest survey score from attorneys in temperament with a 67%.

This year’s Supreme Court retention election gained more attention, as issues around abortion landed state supreme court justices in the national spotlight. Arizonans for a Just Democracy, a political action committee, put out mailers encouraging voters to remove all three Supreme Court justices, a first for Arizona.

Reach crime reporter Miguel Torres at Miguel.Torres@arizonarepublic.com or on Twitter @TheMiguelTorres.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Voters keeping Supreme Court Justice Bill Montgomery