Every two years, the people who use the services of the El Paso County courthouse get a chance to tell the court administrators how they think everything is running, whether people are getting fair treatment and their opinion of how their case was 
handled.

More than half of the 528 people surveyed this summer at the courthouse said they had been treated fairly, and the number of people who thought their case had been handled fairly decreased from 2012, according to the 4th Judicial District’s Access and Fairness Survey Report.

The June 25 survey, conducted about biannually since 2007, helps gauge the public’s perception of the services provided at the court, 4th Judicial District administrator Danny Davis said.

“When people come to court, we want to treat them fairly, with respect, and we want them to feel that they’ve had the opportunity to be heard and that we listened to them,” Davis said.

The survey results are part of accountability documents that the State Court Administration Office reports to the state Legislature annually, computer programs analyst Andrea Chavez said. How the county courthouse is perceived by the public as a state system is one of the administration’s primary measures. The results have been used in other counties to request additional judges and staff, and other results can be used in budget requests, Chavez said.

“The most important thing we want to achieve is the mission of the court, which is to serve the public,” Davis said.

The purpose of the survey is to rate court users’ perceptions of the court’s accessibility and its treatment of the public.

It also provides a general snapshot of a typical day at the courthouse and establishes a baseline of information so that the courts can evaluate practices and create plans that work toward access and fairness, Chavez said.

Since the survey was introduced in 2007 in the 4th Judicial District, Davis said, public perceptions have generally improved and satisfaction levels have increased, but comparison data was only available for 2012 and 2014.

All but one of the categories showed little change between the surveys. The biggest difference came in regard to responders feeling as though their case was treated fairly. That number was 69 percent in 2012 but 62 percent this year.

There are variables, such as the outcome of a responder’s case, that may have affected how they responded to the survey, especially regarding their satisfaction with how their case was handled, Davis said.

–

Contact Andrea Sinclair: 636-0235

Twitter @GazetteAndrea

Facebook Gazette Andrea Sinclair

The El Paso County Terry R. Harris Judicial Complex. Image from Google Maps.