Elaine Howle Elaine Howle, California state auditor.

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.

The report also concluded that the 59-year-old agency too often operates in secrecy and improperly mixes its roles of investigator and disciplinarian.

“The CJP has missed opportunities to fully investigate allegations of misconduct, has a structure and processes for discipline that do not align with best practices and falls short of the intent of the voters, and has failed to ensure it is sufficiently transparent and accessible to the public,” state Auditor Elaine Howle wrote.

The audit follows a two-year legal fight over whether Howle's team should have access to the commission's confidential disciplinary records. Under terms of a settlement reached in September, the auditor was able to scrutinize the agency's practices for the first time in its history.

“I see the results in the audit and I'm definitely committed to doing what I can to improve the work of the commission,” said Gregory Dresser, the commission's director and chief counsel.

The report found that investigators did not always explore all potential evidence in a case if they ran up against obstacles such as having to listen through numerous audio recordings to find a judge's allegedly improper courtroom comments.

“In another example, CJP investigators confirmed that the judge had improperly delegated judicial authority by allowing court staff to perform certain duties,” the report said. “However, despite the fact that CJP visited the court more than once, investigators never interviewed the court staff who were involved in this improper practice.”

The agency also fails to look for patterns of misbehavior in judges, the report concluded, noting that the commission received eight similar allegations of on-the-bench misconduct against one judge over a five-year period but did not pursue discipline until one complainant produced a transcript. The judge ultimately agreed “in a confidential settlement” to resign and never seek office again.

The report recommends that the state provide $419,000 to the commission to pay for a new case management system and to hire an investigations manager to better track patterns in complaints.

Howle also called on the Legislature to ask voters to approve a constitutional amendment that would separate the commission's investigative and disciplinary duties. Currently, the commission considers allegations against a judge and decides whether staff should investigate them. That same panel votes on what, if any, discipline that judge should receive.

“The unitary structure allows commissioners who make disciplinary decisions to be privy to allegations of and facts about possible misconduct that should not factor into their decisions about discipline,” the report said.

The auditor is also recommending that the commission itself oversee evidentiary hearings instead of leaving the task to a three-judge panel of special masters.

State lawmakers approved the audit of the CJP in 2016 amid complaints by judges who said the disciplinary process lacked due process for the accused and by family law litigants who complained that the agency is too lax in pursuing misconduct.

“This report represents a milestone in our efforts to protect the public from egregious judicial misconduct that is destroying people's lives,” said Kathleen Russell, executive director of the Center for Judicial Excellence, one of the groups that lobbied for the audit. “We hope that a few brave legislators will step up to implement the auditor's recommendations—the public is counting on their courage and leadership to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot to reform the CJP and better protect them.”