Report 2016-137 Recommendation 4 Responses
Report 2016-137: Commission on Judicial Performance: Weaknesses in Its Oversight Have Created Opportunities for Judicial Misconduct to Persist (Release Date: April 2019)
Recommendation #4 To: Commission on Judicial Performance
To ensure that it adequately investigates alleged judicial misconduct, by April 2020 CJP should implement processes to ensure that for each of its investigations, CJP's management reviews and approves an investigation strategy that includes all steps necessary to substantiate whether misconduct occurred .
1-Year Agency Response
Attorneys submit for management review a case plan for each case under investigation. Management reviews and approves the investigation strategy that includes all steps necessary to substantiate whether misconduct occurred.
- Completion Date: October 2019
- Response Date: April 2020
California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Fully Implemented
We are assessing this recommendation as fully implemented based on the evidence we reviewed in CJP investigation files. We reviewed eight CJP investigations that were subject to CJP's new case planning process. In each of these files, we found case plans and determined that investigators had documented the reasonable steps that they could take to evaluate whether misconduct occurred. These steps included, as appropriate, interviewing relevant witnesses, reviewing documents, and obtaining court transcripts or recordings.
6-Month Agency Response
The efforts to implement this recommendation are ongoing.
- Estimated Completion Date: April 2020
- Response Date: October 2019
California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Partially Implemented
60-Day Agency Response
For new investigations, staff will complete a Case Plan that sets forth witnesses to contact, documents to collect, and other investigative strategies. The Case Plan also sets forth an estimated time for completion of the investigation. The Case Plan is discussed with, reviewed, and approved by the Director.
- Completion Date: July 2019
- Response Date: June 2019
California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Partially Implemented
We assessed this recommendation as partially implemented pending our verification that CJP's new case plan process sufficiently addresses the deficiencies we identified in our report. We reviewed CJP's new case planning documentation and verified that it contains reasonable elements to ensure quality investigations. However, the success of the new case plan process is highly dependent on the level of rigor CJP applies when developing, approving, and following its case plans.
- Auditee did not substantiate its claim of full implementation
All Recommendations in 2016-137
Agency responses received are posted verbatim.