Fourth Judicial District - El Paso County Court Judge
Honorable Caroline M. Benham
Retention Year: 1994
Recommendation: Retain
Judge Caroline Benham graduated from the University of Colorado School of Law in 1975. Judge Benham was first appointed to the El Paso County Court bench in 1987. Prior to her appointment to the County Court bench, Judge Benham served as a Juvenile Court Referee-Commissioner from 1976 to 1987 and as a District Court Referee-Juvenile Court Commissioner from 1981 to 1987.
Judge Benham was last retained by voters in 1990. Her ratings among those responding attorneys surveyed has remained exactly the same since she was last rated in 1990. The attorneys polled gave Judge Benham a retention rating of 70.4% for retention and 20.4% for no retention. 9.2% had not comment regarding retention. Overall, the practitioners that appear before he gave very high ratings for her courtesy and fairness (91.2% and 85.5% approval rating respectively) and her ability to handle an extremely heavy case load (92.1% approval). However, over a third of those same practitioners felt that she should improve her understanding of the substantive law (67.8% feel she displays an appropriate knowledge of the law), and evidentiary and procedural law (65.5% felt she displays appropriate knowledge of evidence and procedure).
Based upon all the information presented to the Fourth Judicial District Commission on Judicial Performance it is the opinion of the Commission that Judge Caroline Benham BE RETAINED.