Knight Chair in Investigative & Enterprise Reporting
‘Worst-performing judge’ — continued:
Newspapers generally cover important criminal trials and civil litigation in their communities and check the docket of cases filed each day, but the appeals process seems to have fallen through a large journalism loophole. A few states put out news releases on their supreme court decisions and may include the appellate court, but chances are the report has not been aired properly in public. In other words, we have something here that may be a first.
The court systems in each state are supervised by the state supreme courts, and appeals-level decisions are usually found by going to that Web site. But states have different laws and confusing divisions, so each had to be dealt with individually. Following are recommendations for investigative reporters who want to take on this kind of story.
Qualifying the judges
The local reporter must determine the parameters for including a judge in the survey. The University of Illinois reporting class narrowed down the list to trial court judges, as they are referred to in the appeals decisions, but they also may be called circuit court judges. Some judges sit in special courts like divorce, juvenile or traffic. The class study did not include them because their specialty might be particularly vulnerable to appeal. The class was interested only in active judges rather than any who have retired. The federal courts were not included because that is a different area of the justice system, and it could be addressed in a separate investigation in the future.
Time element
The reporter will have to decide what span of dates should be checked. If the sample is too small, such as one year, there may not be enough interesting cases. The class found that five years was too long because then there were more new judges joining who did not have a full term. The class settled on 32 months, which took them to the end of the semester and included the two previous calendar years.
Setting boundaries
The idea of this service is to provide an investigation for a local circulation area. The reporter will have to decide the geographical boundaries being examined. Fortunately, judges are assigned to cases in a geographical area, usually a county or more than one county. The reporter at a newspaper will want to decide which of the counties in the metropolitan area is to be counted and will probably want to print a small map as a graphic to accompany the story.
Followup
It is said that 'idea people' are 'a dime a dozen,' and it is 'followthrough people' who are in demand. The followthrough by reporters researching court opinions may consist of talking to lawyers about cases, checking on what happened to a case after it was returned and interviewing the judge with the most reversals. The reporter will need to know the facts in each of the cases reversed because the judge may want to comment on them. But first, the reporter has to make the count and get the cases.