Public Safety and Judicial Accountability Act

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Policy Status

  • Type: Model Policy
  • Status: Draft
  • Date Introduced: December 4, 2025

Task Forces

  • Judiciary

    • Tags

  • SNPS 2025

    • Summary

    The Public Safety and Judicial Accountability Act aims to increase transparency and enhance public access to information about judicial performance in criminal proceedings. This act requires the state’s judicial administration office to produce an annual Public Safety and Judicial Accountability Report illustrating comparative statistics across judicial officers and districts. Reports must include detailed data on each judge/judicial officer’s handling of criminal cases, including: conviction rates, sentencing trends, bail decisions, probation outcomes, and time to case disposition. Reports must be submitted to the legislature, published online, and prominently linked before elections involving judicial officers whose data are included.   
    Draft

    Public Safety and Judicial Accountability Act

    A new section shall be added as follows: 

    (a) The following definitions apply throughout: 

    1. “Criminal action” means a prosecution against a person alleging the commission of a felony or misdemeanor. 
    2. “Office” refers to the state office of judicial administration, state court administrator, or equivalent. 
    3. “Report” means the “public safety and judicial accountability report” described in subsection (b). 

    (b) On or before September 1, 2026 and every year thereafter, the office shall compile a Public Safety and Judicial Accountability Report. The report shall include the following information for each judicial officer who presides over a criminal action or any portion of a criminal action and shall also be compiled by judicial district: 

    1. The name of the judicial officer and judicial district in which the judicial officer serves. 
    2. The total number of criminal actions presided over by the judicial officer, and the number of criminal actions that resulted in a conviction, for all: (A) jury trials; (B) bench trials; and (C) guilty pleas. 
    3. The percentage of criminal actions that resulted in a conviction, in total and separately for all: (A) jury trials; (B) bench trials; and (C) guilty pleas. 
    4. The percentage of defendants convicted of a: (A) misdemeanor who were sentenced to a term of incarceration; and (B) felony who were sentenced to a term of incarceration. 
    5. The average, mean, and median length of all sentences for incarceration for: (A) misdemeanors; and (B) felonies.  
    6. The percentage of defendants sentenced to probation. 
    7. The percentage of defendants charged with a new crime while on probation. 
    8. The percentage of defendants whose probation was revoked. 
    9. The percentage of defendants who were detained pending trial and the percentages of those who were released by the posting of a: (A) personal recognizance bond or promise to appear in court; (B) unsecured bond; (C) surety bail bond; (D) cash bond; (E) ten percent (10%) cash to the court or other partially secured bond; or, (F) property bond. 
    10. For defendants required to post a bond as required in (9)(B)-(F), the average amount of bail imposed for each: (A) misdemeanor class; (B) felony class; and, (3) violent felony charges as a class. 
    11. The percentage of defendants released on bail who were charged with a new crime while on bail, broken out by class as defined in (10). 
    12. The overall failure to appear rate, by class as defined in (10), calculated by dividing the total number of times a defendant failed to appear when required, by the total number of appearances required. 
    13. The average time to disposition all criminal actions handled, overall and by class as defined in (10). 
    14. Comparative statistics, comprising the data required in this section and any other case-processing time standard or other performance data, to allow the performance of a judicial officer to be compared to other judicial officers. 
    15. Any other data or information that may assist the public in understanding the handling of criminal actions by judicial officers. 

    (c) The office shall transmit a copy of the report to the legislative council before September 1 of each year. The report shall be in an electronic format pursuant to law. In addition, the office shall publish the report on its website. 

    (d) At least thirty (30) days before an election in which a judicial officer whose data is included in the report is on the ballot, the office shall publish a link to the report on the front page of its website.