Washington, DC— Today, the nation's first comprehensive study of the systems that hold state and federal judges accountable ranked Montana 42^nd in the nation and issued the state's program a D+ grade. To shine a light on the typically secretive and toothless systems that often fail to remove abusive and incompetent judges from the bench, legal consumer watchdog group HALT, Inc. released its 2008 Judicial Accountability Report Card, analyzing programs in all 50 states, D.C. and the federal circuits.

"Montana's system of judicial oversight is one of the most secretive in the nation," stated HALT Senior Counsel Suzanne M. Blonder, noting that Montana rules allow some dysfunctional judges to be sanctioned with private reprimands, and in these circumstances the public never learns of the judge's history of misconduct.

Additionally, Montana is one of only three states in the nation that does not require judges to file annual financial disclosure reports detailing their economic interests. As a result, litigants do not have the opportunity to determine if the judge presiding over their case has a financial conflict of interest.

The state also does not place meaningful limitations on the reimbursements and compensation that judges may accept in connection with corporate and special interest funded trips. "Montana's laws unfortunately include massive loopholes that allow members of the judiciary to be wined and dined on the corporate dime," noted Blonder.

Montana received low marks for its inadequate online resources about the judicial discipline process. The Web site for the Judicial Standards Commission fails to offer a clear explanation of the process for filing an ethics complaint against a judge and lacks critical online tools that most state judicial discipline Web sites offer, including a downloadable complaint form, a database of past disciplinary decisions and links to the state's Code of Judicial Conduct.

None of the top five states-Washington, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Arizona and California-scored higher than a B average on HALT's Report Card. More than half of the states received grades in the C range and HALT issued D's to 14 jurisdictions. Two states-Maine and Mississippi-flunked outright.

"At a time when the American public has lost faith in the impartiality and fairness of the nation's judiciary, it's critical that we have an effective system of oversight for judges," stated Blonder. "We hope that Montana's chief judicial officers will work to transform a mechanism marred by secrecy into a system dedicated to upholding the integrity of the judiciary."