Sixteenth Judicial District - Crowley County Court Judge
Honorable Carl W. Ross
Retention Year: 1990
Recommendation: Retain
Judicial Performance Commission’s recommendation: Should Be Retained.
Judge Ross spent two years at Otero Junior College and also studied at Metro State College in Denver and pursued studies in aviation management and business management. He and his wife have five grown children.
Ross has worked mostly in appraisal fields since his college days. He was the Crowley County assessor for five years, and he has worked as an appraisal consultant for five years for the state of Colorado. He has worked as a free-lance appraiser and has subcontracted for the auditor of assessors in the state of Colorado for agricultural purposes. He travels around the state helping audit the local count assessors.
The Crowley County Court has been classified by the state legislature to be a part-time county court. The judge’s salary is set by the number of cases he or she finishes each year. In 1988, the actual caseload for Crowley County involved 446 new filings. Since Crowley County is a class D county, the legislature has not required that the county judge be an attorney. While Ross in not an attorney, he has attended the National Judicial College for training as a non-attorney judge and has received substantial additional training from the state of Colorado.
Ross spends about two days a week as a judge and says he enjoys the work very much. He says he tries hard to educate himself on legal issues and feels one of the strengths is a desire to learn. He says he does not dislike many aspects of his job but finds the most distasteful portion is handling family disturbances.
Attorney evaluations of Ross were returned by seven lawyers. Favorable responses were given in all categories, including integrity, legal ability, communication skills, control over judicial procedures, docket management, punctuality and sentencing.
Ross has not had the opportunity to handle a jury trial, so no juror questionnaires were returned.
The tree questionnaires returned by three court clerks and probations officers who work with the county court all were favorable. Two of the three law enforcement officials recommended Ross be retained. The third had no opinion, saying he had the judge was too lenient. There were no other negative comments on that questionnaire, however.