California’s judicial watchdog agency has failed to fully investigate certain complaints against judges and needs a big infusion of funding and a possible overhaul by voters, the state auditor said in a report released Thursday.
The long-awaited 91-page audit of the Commission on Judicial Performance, or CJP, found that in 11 of 30 sampled complaints alleging judicial misbehavior, investigators did not take “all reasonable steps” to confirm the allegations, which included threatening to assault litigants, having a relationship with a subordinate and improperly delegating judicial work to clerks. Six of those cases were closed without discipline. The other five resulted in a judge being privately reprimanded.
