In the runup to March’s contested judicial elections, the tough-on-crime nonprofit Stop Crime Action has released a “Judge Report Card.” In a January Facebook post, the organization described its publication as the culmination of “an amazing amount of research.”
And yet, the term “amazing” can mean more than one thing. In the failing report card for San Francisco Superior Court Judge Michael Begert, a 13-year incumbent, Stop Crime Action cites six blind comments about the judge, five of which are viscerally negative.
And yet, four of those quotes emanate from “The Robing Room,” a Yelp- or Rate My Professors-like website in which anonymous courtroom observers weigh in on judges. Concerningly, while these four quotes are presented on the Stop Crime Action report card as if they emanated from four different sources, all of them are pulled from a single rant against Begert written by a disgruntled family court participant in 2015.
And, while that diatribe is riddled with grammatical errors to the point of semi-incoherence, the comments as recreated on the Stop Crime Action report card have been corrected, giving the commenter — presented as four commenters — the appearance of greater erudition.
The quotes presented on Stop Crime Action’s failing Begert report card are as follows:
“This judge repeatedly allows re-offenders back into Drug Court.”
“Incompetent, doesn’t care about details … ”
“Doesn’t listen … behave(s) like he is a god.”
“He is not checking facts.”
“Big heart for the community, very dedicated and compassionate … kind and generous, a model judge.”
“He isn’t checking documents, refuses to see photos, video, listen to audio …. When he sees people in front of him, he makes a decision right away, and nothing can change his opinion. I really think that he doesn’t belong to Superior Court in family law.”
The Robing Room comment left by an anonymous user on Feb. 10, 2015, is as follows:
Like a family law judge, I believe BEGERT,Michael,I is incompetent,don’t care about details, don’t listen, feel and behave like he is a god.
He don’t look who is front of him.
He is not checking facts.
He isn’t checking documents,refuse to see photos, video, listen to audio-When he see people front of him he make decision right away, and nothing can change his opinion. I really think that he doesn’t belong to superior court in family law.
The quotes on the Stop Crime Action report card are presented in a section titled “comments from court observers.” Each is presented separately, and there is no way for any voter perusing this report to know that four of the six comments are from the same court observer — and that these quotes are lifted from an anonymous corner of the web.
There’s also no way to pinpoint the source — though the author of the statement “He don’t look who is front of him” and “When he see people front of him he make decision right away … ” is likely not a law school graduate.
On The Robing Room, anonymous commenters are categorized as “Civil Litigation — private” or “Criminal Defense Lawyer,” or other designations. The commenter eviscerating Begert is merely described as “other” — meaning he or she could well be a dissatisfied party in a family law case.
Mission Local has sent an email to the unnamed author of the 2015 Robing Room comment through the site. We have not yet received a response.
When asked why his organization chose to scrape unsourced comments from The Robing Room, present one comment as if it emanated from four separate sources, and correct the jarring and pervasive grammatical errors in that one comment, Stop Crime Action founder Frank Noto replied “each quote made a separate point, so we separated them.”
He claimed the report card was “factually correct.”
Begert, who failed Stop Crime Action’s report card, was rated “well-qualified” by the Bar Association of San Francisco, as was San Francisco Superior Court Judge Patrick Thompson, who is also being challenged.
Begert and Thompson’s challengers, Chip Zecher and Jean Myungjin Roland, “did not respond to our repeated requests for them to participate” in the Bar Association’s rating process, said the Bar’s spokesperson.
The Bar Association confirms that this is the first time in at least 15 years a candidate for judge, either an incumbent or a challenger, has failed to participate in its rating process.
In addition to sources like The Robing Room, Stop Crime SF sent a survey to more than 200 San Francisco prosecutors or public defenders. The survey asked respondents to rate judges in a variety of categories from 1 to 7, and submit individual commentaries as well.
Noto described the return rate as “robust” — more than 10 percent. “In marketing research, if you get four or five percent, you’re thrilled.”
But a judge’s report card isn’t synonymous with “marketing.” You don’t need to be a political scientist or professor of statistics to wonder about small sample sizes or respondent bias. But Mission Local spoke with both, and they did wonder about that.
With 20-odd respondents providing the totality of the numerical ratings, both of these problems are present.
“The respectable polls you see, like YouGov, increasingly have to be weighted and re-weighted in order to get what they think is a representative sample,” said Stanford University political science professor Bruce Cain. “Even at the highest level, with thousands of people responding, it’s a problem of bias. When you get a small sample like [the report card], you’re talking about a small fraction of an initial sample of a couple hundred.”
Added Alejandro Schuler, a University of California, Berkeley, professor of biostatistics, “If your sampling is not random, certain people will feel compelled to respond, because of whatever reason. So you have a non-random sample, and any confidence interval you’d get is wrong.”
Both Cain and Schuler were taken aback at the practice of lifting an anonymous quote off the web, presenting it as if it emanated from multiple sources, and cleaning up its pervasive grammatical errors.
“That is a misrepresentation of the feedback,” said Cain. “This has been strategically manipulated.”
Schuler notes that, “Academically, this would not fly.”
But the report card is in the realm of politics, not academics. “I’m not claiming it’s a scientific survey,” says Noto. “I am a professional survey researcher. It’s a survey of court attorneys. It is what it is.”
Additional reporting by Joe Rivano Barros.
Worth noting that their handpicked candidates didn’t even respond to the written questions and interview with the Bar Association of San Francisco (who uses the questionnaire used by the state Judicial Nominees Evaluation, so a fairly rigorous evaluation). BASF said they reached out several times. So they blew off BASF but they’re promoting unsourced “yelp” style anonymous reviews? This is not serious. Reflects poorly on the so-called “moderates.”
At a macro level, this is just another example of what happens when people become dogmatic: That is the spirit of righteousness absolves them of any crime, any ethics issue, any intentional foible in misrepresenting the facts or out-and-out lying, in their zeal to achieve their goals. It is what I most detest in the YIMBY movement, GrowSF and the other tech-CEO and Republican funded political organizations.
Make no mistake, the biggest threat to democracy is misinformation and this is clearly misinformation.
Gary,
I’m a low bandwidth AI groupie and it will get worse quickly.
Harari says that Language is the Operating System of Humanity and that AI has ‘hacked it’ and can possibly use their superior speed to enslave us.
David Shapiro says that:
“Truth is fish and words are the net.”
This is getting more interesting all the time.
Glad I have stable housing kinda and income kinda, a working big screen, and popcorn.
Niners win in Overtime and Valencia under my window goes mad !
h.
Mmm. At the macro level, if you are righteous, it would be complicated for your opponents to misrepresent reality. But that is not what is happening here; this judge has opened a corridor for right-wing challengers to achieve their goals. He did so by releasing Fentanyl drug dealers multiple times. It is a fact, and not a lie, that he released Nicol Palma in 2021 and 2022. Now, voters are listening, to misinformation or not.
I have read the report card. The report card grades are given based on how these judges have ruled and sentenced people in felony cases. Also, it reports how many times felons who were released by these judges commited other crimes. This can predict whether these judges made our streets more or less safe. Curiously, you have chosen to focus your entire article on the comment section of the report card which is actually a minor part of the report card. It would’ve been nice for you to put a link to the report card in your article. That way people might be able to make their mind their own mind up about the report card.
Donald —
There’s a link in there. You missed it. Among other things.
JE
Ahahaha wonderful article. So glad to know where to go if I need good data from a “professional survey researcher.” Sobering to think how many people will be making decisions based on this high quality research, but as they say, it is what it is!
Great reporting Joe! I was one of the public defenders who got one of these surveys and ignored it cause Stop Crime S.F. has a clear biased agenda and doesn’t care about justice, truth or the law. Why engage with a group that has decided on an outcome in advance? That just legitimizes them. This is a racist tough on crime war on drugs pushing group. I have my issues with all the judges on the bench often when they rule against my clients but the only ones who deserve to be kicked out are the incompetent ones who don’t follow the law and rule with a predetermined outcome… just like StopCrimeSF.
Fair comment, public defender, but which are the ones that are incompetent? Beyond that, which ones don’t believe or practice bail, so defendants are free to offend again? That is one thing, of several, that get people upset and they want to know more about. Who else is providing any kind of information about the judges?
I worked with one of the Republican candidates and I wouldn’t vote for him if you paid me. Judge Begert does a good job in a hard court – the CARE court. The GOP challenge to these judges is based on vapor and a total lack of comprehension of what CARE courts do under CA law.
GOP?? You mean moderate democrats.
But you progressive criminal justice Chesa footmen care more about drug deals from Honduras then the good sf citizens who deserve safely over a criminals rights.
It’s not like we can expect the MAGA billionaires who are taking over San Francisco government to be honest or ethical.
So we have lawyers evaluating lawyers. What could possibly go wrong with that? No profession is more honest, admirable, and ethical than lawyers. We can totally trust their recommendations are made considering only the public interest and not the financial interests, aspirations, privileges, or the remuneration lawyers are awarded by judges. In fact since lawyers are so impartial and objective, we should allow only lawyers to be jurors.
I carefully listened to Judge Begert at the County Fair building presentation. He spent a lot of time describing absolutely nothing about his judicial temperament, a key aspect of how judges are supposed to be evaluated. He certainly didn’t demonstrate oral communication skills, a quality superior court judges are required to have.