About

Candidates and judges do not control their own profiles. They are able to submit biographies, statements, and articles, but an administrator reviews submissions carefully. Candidates and judges must provide a link or PDF document when claiming awards and publications; this is so that voters can verify them. Cases are mined from various data sources and added to judicial profiles. Corrections on any cases or articles can be submitted by anyone and corrections are applied as quickly as possible.

This website is different from other "rate-a-judge" websites in that we do not rely on popular reviews. The problem with relying on popular reviews is that, all too often, the reviewer is doing so because he or she is happy with or angry with the judge's decision in a personal case. The major purpose of this website is to show the public which judges are competent in their position. The popularity or unpopularity of a judge provides a poor metric of review because judges are supposed to interpret and apply existing law, even if they personally disagree with it. Accordingly, we have determined that the most unbias, effective metric of review is a judge's error rate on appeal.

A judge's error rate provides for the most unbias, effective, and accurate measure of a judge's competence. What truly matters is whether or not the judge's decision was unbiased, logical, and consistent with law (including the Constitution) and legislative intent. This is precisely the function the

Supreme Court of Nevada

serves, and by tracking a judge's error rate on appeal, we can more reliably determine the judges that are competent in their position and the judges that are not. Personal reviews are given little weight by the public, which is one of the biggest reasons the several other rate-a-judge websites currently on the internet have so little credibility. A judge is almost always going to be involved in angering people with his or her decisions. The job by its very nature requires picking winners and losers, and seldom does a litigant actually care if the judge's decisions are correct as opposed to whether or not the judge ruled in their favor.

When a person files an appeal, the appellate court (which can be either the

Court of Appeals

or the

Supreme Court of Nevada

itself) institutes a review of the decision made by the judge in the lower court. The appellate court will examine the judge's ruling to determine whether or not the judge made any

prejudicial

mistakes. If it is determined that the judge did not err, the appellate court will

affirm

the judge's decision. If it is determined that the judge erred, the appellate court will

reverse

or

vacate

the lower court's decision, and the case will usually be

remanded

back to the lower court, sometimes with specific instructions on how the law should be applied. A lower court's decisions can also be challenged by the filing of a

writ petition

. These are considered an only when extraordinary relief is warranted, and if so, are granted upon the determination that the lower court erred, and denied otherwise.

Legal errors undermine the public's confidence in our judges and our legal system. Legal errors can be devastating for the average person because the person is burdened with the costs of the appeal and usually, when an error is found, the case is not over but actually

remanded

. The costs of sustaining this process are burdened not on the judge that made the mistake, but rather, the person litigating the case. For these reasons, it is important that judges are competent, unbiased, and fair. Judges that are incompetent, unprofessional, and biased can be exposed by a poor error rate on appeal; we, as citizens of this State, should strive to remove these judges from the bench.

The

Commmission on Judicial Discipline

serves the public by providing oversight of the judiciary (much like the

State Bar Of Nevada

provides oversight of attorneys). When a judge is found guilty of violating the Judicial Canon, the Commission imposes discipline and (with rare exceptions) publishes their opinion for the public. Generally, a guilty judge will be fined, ordered to apologize to the public, and ordered to attend continuing legal or judicial education; but sometimes, a judge will be suspended or even removed from the bench. Anyone can file a judicial ethics complaint against a judge.

Judicial error rates are a function of a judge's legal errors divided by the judge's total cases reviewed. For the purposes of this calculation, an order

reversing

or

vacating

is considered an error, as is an order granting a

writ petition

. An order of

affirmance

or an order denying a

writ petition

(if based on the merits) is not considered an error. Orders dismissing an appeal, declining to consider the merits of a

writ petition

, and

confessions of error

are omitted from the computation.

A judge's detected errors are not the only errors that are actually occurring. Firstly, only a small percentage of contested cases are actually appealed, especially those of judges in the Family Division; so a lot of errors are not being detected simply because they escape review. Secondly, The

Supreme Court of Nevada

will sometimes recognize a mistake but deem it

harmless

and

affirm

the judge's decision on that basis. For these several reasons, we assume that for every mistake that is caught, several many more went uncaught.