Last night’s retention hearing interviews of Judges Maley,
Walsh and Davenport went as smoothly as any in recent memory. Even though
Judges Maley and Walsh are going through this process for the first time, they
did well and engaged the committee members in detailed conversations about
their court work. Judge Maley had about six years experience as a family court
magistrate before being named a superior court judge. But, until judicial
restructuring in 2010 magistrates were not subject to the retention process.
Some judges really fear the process but both of these judges seemed to handle
it just fine. Sure each had a combination of negative and very positive
comments on the legislative council questionnaire, but both spoke with
confidence in response to committee questions.
Interestingly both judges spoke to the isolation they feel
as judges. Judge Maley spoke to the diversity of cases he encountered in the
civil division. Judge Walsh complimented the environmental division staff with
helping improve time to resolution of cases and the disposition guidelines that
were adopted for the division.
Judge Davenport’s interview really just consisted of a
discussion of the varied duties of the administrative judge. She only received
8 comments on the questionnaires due to the few days she has been able to be on
the bench in the last year and a half to two years. So the committee’s
conversation with her focused more on disposition guidelines and case and
document management systems.
Two weeks from last night the committee will be interviewing
Judges Hayes, Suntag and Nancy Corsones. On February 19th, from 7 to
8:30 there will be a public hearing and the opportunity for any of you to
appear to offer testimony on any of the six judges. That will take place in
Room 11 at the statehouse.
Thanks for reading.
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