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Recommendations by Civic Engagement Beyond Voting.
Arizona Supreme Court |
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| Judge Name | Appointed By | Appointed When | Retained | Judicial Performance Reports | RETAIN (YES)
or DO NOT RETAIN (NO) |
| William G. Montgomery | Ducey | 2019 | 19 meets requirements, 2 does not meet |
NO |
|
 Rationale: Montgomery was notoriously unqualified to be a Supreme Court Justice when Gov Ducey appointed him in 2019, and we can’t urge more strongly that he NOT BE RETAINED.
He was formerly turned down by the AZ Commission on Appellate Court Appointments with criticism of his lack of experience, his clear ideological bent, and his office’s culture of misconduct, Ducey stacked the Commission, which then reversed that decision. Montgomery politicized the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office when he managed it from 2010 to 2019, during which time the office was “plagued by scandal and lawsuits” (Slate, 2019). He fiercely opposes LGBTQ equality and openly refuses to provide adoption support services to same-sex couples. He is a staunch defender of the death penalty, the failed “war on drugs,” and mass incarceration. As if that isn’t enough, Montgomery failed to discipline Juan Martinez (later disbarred), who harassed women in & out of the MCAO office and misused MCAO resources while Montgomery was in charge. He claims membership in the ideologically right-wing Federalist Society. For a Supreme Court Justice to receive even 2 “does not meet judicial standards” evaluations from the JPR is disqualifying. |
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Court of Appeals Division I |
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| Judge Name | Appointed By | Appointed When | Retained | Judicial Performance Reports | RETAIN (YES)
or DO NOT RETAIN (NO) |
| Cynthia J. Bailey | Brewer, Ducey | 2011 as Superior Court Judge, 2020 nominated to Court of Appeals | 22 meets requirements |
NO |
|
 Rationale: Ducey nominated Bailey to the Court of Appeals in April 2020. Bailey embraces Federalist Society ideology, which is antithetical to the concept of an impartial, independent judiciary. She is participating in a Federalist Society Conference in October 2022, on a panel on Originalism and the Arizona Constitution.
In addition, Judge Bailey’s husband, Michael G Bailey, was Interim US Attorney for the District of Arizona from 2019-2021 and unflinchingly enforced Pres Trump’s harsh immigration policies. From 2015-2019 he served in the AZ Attorney General’s Office and is now with the Arizona Chamber of Commerce. |
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Arizona Courts’ Stark Lack of Diversity Demands Action
Arizona’s population is 50.1% women; 53.2% White; 5.4% Black; 32.3% Latino or Hispanic; 46.8% persons of color (census.gov/quick facts).
Yet our state judiciary is glaringly white and male; fewer than 10% of superior court judges in Arizona are persons of color, and only 37% are women. According to the Arizona Advocacy Network’s 2021 research, 91% of the Superior Court judiciary is white; 4.1% are Hispanic, 2.9% are Asian/Pacific Islander, and 0.6% are Native.
Of the seven justices on the Arizona Supreme Court, two are women, and almost all are white (Justice Beene is half-Hispanic, and Justice Lopez claims multi-generation Texas origins, not Hispanic).
As Governor, Doug Ducey has appointed 92 judges, expanded the Arizona Supreme Court from 5 to 7 justices, and in 2022, tucked quietly into the budget, expanded the Court of Appeals Div I from 16 to 19 judges and Div 2 from 6 to 9 judges. Court-packing? You be the judge!
Five of the 15 judges that Ducey has appointed to the Appeals Courts are women; 26 of the 73 judges appointed to County Superior Courts are women.
Another dimension of diversity where the AZ Court system fails markedly is a legal background: a disproportionate number of judges come from prosecutorial ranks, furthering a bias against defendants.
Nationally, 95% of cases are filed in state courts. Bankruptcy claims, child custody fights, landlord-tenant disputes, bail hearings, traffic violations, criminal matters, and countless other cases are heard by state judges. Plaintiffs and defendants in the courtroom represent all ethnicities, backgrounds, economic means, experiences, and the full panoply of diversity that is America. Judges from an equal diversity of backgrounds instill public trust in the judiciary and render decisions with insight and compassion.
In a 2009 oral argument, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested that her then all-male colleagues had wrongly equated a strip-search of a middle-school girl to changing for gym class in a locker room because they had “never been a 13-year-old girl.” In uncounted small and enormous ways, a diverse judiciary can strengthen the courts and humanize the justice they mete out.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY: The authors and researchers of Gavel Watch are not attorneys and have not participated in any relevant cases as plaintiffs or defendants before the listed judges, nor are they participants in any part of the judicial system except as observers.
We researched all the judges up for retention in 2020 using the following tools: Judicial Performance Reports, The Robing Room, DM Cantor, websites for the various courts, financial statements submitted to the AZ Secretary of State, news sources too numerous to mention, Arizona Republic database searching, Twitter, Facebook, and The Federalist Society. Recommendations to Retain (YES), or Do Not Retain (NO) are based on evaluations of all reports combined, with less weight given to obviously biased opinions stated by winners and losers of court cases.
© 2020 Civic Engagement Beyond Voting. Please direct questions to rtsaz2017@gmail.com Not for use in whole or in part without permission. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
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