Arizona’s worst judges

Arizona’s judges are pretty freaking awesome.

At least, according to fellow judges, lawyers and other folks who interacted with a judge in the last three years and had the wherewithal to fill out a survey.

The Commission on Judicial Performance Review (JPR) recently released its judicial scorecards, and if you were to just glance at the numbers for the single Supreme Court justice and 81 judges up for retention in November, you’d have a pretty good opinion of our judicial system.

Every single judge met the standards of the JPR.

Which either means the judges are great — or the standards are low.

The commissioners determine whether judges are up to snuff by relying on surveys of attorneys, litigants, jurors, witnesses and fellow judges. They ask about a judge’s legal ability, integrity, communication, temperament and administrative performance.

But responses can be few and far between.

JPR has historically grappled with conveying a fair summary of a judge’s performance, especially in small sample sizes when a scorned attorney or two has the capacity to completely tank a score.

As a result, commissioners have sometimes questioned whether the data is valid at all.

To try to address this problem, commissioners have added categories, then later struck them. They’ve lengthened questions, then shortened them. And they’ve tinkered with rating systems — should a judge’s low point be described as unacceptable? Or very poor? Depends on who you ask.

In the process, commissioners have turned to multiple experts for guidance to make the surveys more user-friendly. They’ve changed the rating scales ahead of the 2026 cycle to create a clearer one-to-five grading system.

Response rates were still lackluster, though. The average response rate for appellate court judges clocked in at about 18%, while superior court judges flew a little higher with a 20% average.

Meanwhile, reports for judges take the glass-half-full approach, highlighting the rate of survey respondents who found judges to be “acceptable,” “good” or “very good,” while shuffling the “poor” and “very poor” results a little deeper into the lines of the data table.

But considering that the JPR reports are really the only way the public can evaluate that wall of judges on the back of their ballots, we‘re gonna spend today diving into the data.

We can do this, readers. We’ll get through it together. And for the sake of brain space, we’re only going to focus on the underachievers.

But we’re going to be a little more strict than JPR.

Commissioners generally deem a judge to be in trouble if more than 25% of respondents find some aspect of the judge‘s conduct to be less than acceptable, though bad survey results aren‘t always fatal.

Commissioners take into account public comment, disciplinary history, past rulings, court assignment and prior survey results, and JPR allows a judge to come plead their case in writing and in person in a closed-door session.

So, even if surveys show bad marks for something like failure to upkeep a calendar or, I don’t know, unequal treatment of people based on national origin, religion, disability, sexual orientation, economic status, race, gender and age (true story), the commission can and has concluded that a judge still met JPR standards.

So, here’s the plan. If more than 10% of survey respondents found a Court of Appeals judge’s performance to be less than acceptable in any given category, best believe we’re putting them on blast.

For superior court judges in Maricopa, Pima, Pinal and Coconino counties we’ll be a little kinder. Some judges are new, others work in more contentious areas of the law (looking at you, family court), so we’ll make the trial cutoff 20% of survey respondents.

Throw small sample sizes to the wind (don’t), low response rates be damned (just kidding, let’s really keep that in mind here, folks) … Let’s see those scores!

Howe received some flak in his performance review from a superior court judge and an attorney over his legal ability, integrity and communication skills.

Around 15% of his judicial peers, in so many words, said Howe was not playing nice with others and rated his ability to work effectively with other judges as poor.

Another attorney took issue with his administrative performance. But at the end of the survey period, attorneys, superior court judges and his peers by and large agreed he was at least an acceptable judge.

Jacobs saw a slight dip in ratings on his performance in his recent retention surveys, facing some seeming animosity from superior court judges and one of his judicial peers.

In 2025, one superior court judge rated his legal ability, integrity and administrative performance as poor. And 9% of attorney respondents rated his temperament poor, and 10% docked points on his administrative performance.

In the second round of surveys, 18% of attorneys found Jacobs’ ability to put out clearly written, legally supported decisions to be poor.

Around 7% of respondents of his judicial peers found Jacobs was not necessarily dignified, courteous or patient. And 22% of superior court judges flagged Jacobs’ ability to promptly issue rulings and decisions as very poor.

Perkins clawed her way up from low scores on legal ability but still struggled with integrity.

Perkins initially saw 22% of attorneys rate her legal ability poor and 12% rate it unacceptable. About 6% of superior court judges put down poor.

Attorneys took shots at her integrity, too. 13% of respondents returned an unacceptable score when it came to equal treatment regardless of national origin, religion, disability, sexual orientation and economic status. And 11% marked the lowest box on equal treatment regardless of race, gender and age.

The 22% poor scores and the 12% unacceptable scores on Perkins’ legal ability each dropped to 10%.

But by the second phase of surveys, JPR changed the measure of integrity. So instead of looking at discrimination, the commission asked whether the judge was unbiased and impartial.

Still, even under the new definition, 20% of attorney respondents found Perkins’ integrity to be very poor.

Brearcliffe got a little tripped up on legal ability.

In his midterm surveys, 18% of attorneys found Brearcliffe’s legal ability to be either poor or downright unacceptable. His biggest problems came in the categories addressing whether his decisions were based on law and facts, clearly written and legally supported — where 20% of attorneys found fault.

The same continued on his retention surveys, too, where 25% of attorneys and 17% of superior court judge respondents rated Brearcliffe’s legal ability very poor.

Kelly primarily ran into issues with legal ability and hit some road bumps in administrative performance.

Among attorneys, 27% found his legal ability to be poor or unacceptable in his first review.

And in the second round of reviews, 38% of attorneys who participated in oral argument found failings in Kelly’s communication skills, while 17% saw fault in judicial temperament, with 33% expressing some doubts about his ability to promote public confidence in the court.

Mata ran into the most trouble with integrity.

Around 12% of attorneys and 40% of litigants and witnesses found Mata poor or very poor in her ability to be unbiased and impartial.

She also was hit for her judicial temperament, with 14% of attorneys and 35% of litigants and witnesses flagging it as a problem.

Nicholls fell short in judicial temperament, administrative performance, communication skills and integrity.

Roughly 41% of attorneys, 34% of litigants and witnesses and 21% of her judicial peers all agreed Nicholls, in some instances, was not respectful or courteous and did not promote confidence in the court.

Her administrative performance fell into the crosshairs, too, as 30% of attorneys, 29% of litigants and witnesses and 27% of her judicial peers saw issues with her ability to work effectively with staff, manage the calendar, maintain control in the courtroom and show up punctual and prepared for court proceedings.

Communication was an issue, too, prompting bad reviews from 27% of attorneys, 28% of litigants and witnesses and 16% of her fellow judges.

Nicholls’ colleagues did not see any issue with her integrity, but 23% of attorneys and 29% of litigants and witnesses did.

That wasn’t so bad, was it?

Judges in Pima, Pinal and Coconino counties may not have ended up in the doghouse with us, or JPR, but trust, there‘s plenty more to see.

You don’t have to take six hours scrubbing through every single line of survey data for every single judge (that‘s what we’re here for), but it’s never a bad idea to get learned, especially when you remember the Legislature‘s 2024 ballot referral attempting to shield all judges who met JPR standards from having to stand for retention with voters.

Remember that? That was crazy.

Complete scores for all the judges are available on the JPR website, alongside bios, appellate court decisions, assignments and date of appointment — which can lead you to which governor appointed which judge. Godspeed.