Colorado not to be retained in 2022. It is not a rare event to have a judge come up short on a retention vote, as each of the four prior election cycles also featured judges losing their seats.

However, Woods fell into the unusual category of being non-retained despite a favorable evaluation from one of the state’s independent, citizen-led commissions that reviews the performance of judges. The performance commissions used to recommend to voters whether to retain or not retain a judge; now, they advise whether judges “meet performance standards” based on a matrix of factors.

Woods was one of several judges in 2022 to receive a split vote from her performance commission. Six members believed she met performance standards, while three did not. It was the same margin, for instance, of a county court judge in Rio Blanco County — an older man — who met performance standards despite parties in his courtroom feeling pressured to settle cases for fear the judge would get confused and misapply the law at trial. (Voters retained him by a margin of 2-to-1.)

In contrast, Woods’ commission repeatedly noted that she had improved as a judge since the time of the Pitcher hearing. And yet, its members wrote, “the Commission found the public did not see Judge Woods as fair.”

Rather than being the first signal to voters that something was wrong, the commission’s observation was actually a confirmation of the local narrative about Woods, spread for two years online and through the media.

To her opponents, Woods’ loss was a function of her approach to crime, specifically her application of “restorative justice,” which focuses on repairing the harmful effects of a crime rather than punishing the offender. In their telling, Woods’ version crossed over the line into coddling criminals.

For Woods, in contrast, the election involved a confluence of external and internal forces — of her own unfamiliarity with the job, of misinformation, of differential treatment because of her age and sex, and of a Democratic-leaning county not liking the criminal justice reform it was seeing.

“I was different and they didn’t want that,” she said.

Defense attorney with a vision

Woods graduated from the University of Denver’s law school in 2015, five years before her appointment. She then became a public defender in Durango, which she characterized as a “front seat” to the systemic flaws of the criminal justice system. In 2020, she applied to become the sole La Plata County Court judge, beating out two men with prosecutorial experience for the position.

Woods recalled being open with the governor’s office and the citizen-led judicial nominating commission about her goals.

“I really was always a fan of procedural justice, which is the concept of giving everyone a voice, treating everyone with dignity and respect, and using plain language that people can understand, trying to be neutral,” she said.

In Colorado, county court judges preside over misdemeanor crimes, traffic cases (including non-felony drunken driving), small claims and evictions. They also set bail for criminal defendants.

Initially, Woods struggled to adapt. A number of attorneys told Colorado Politics that lawyers would openly demean her, and she occasionally had difficulty controlling the courtroom. An initial evaluation from her judicial performance commission in 2021 corroborated the concerns — 70% of attorneys and 100% of non-attorneys who filled out surveys believed Woods did not meet performance standards. Her lowest score was in the category of “application and knowledge of law.”

At the time, Woods felt that some of the criticism of her performance was unfair, but acknowledged she had legitimate issues to fix. In large part, there was concern the judge extended inappropriate amounts of compassion to the criminally accused.

“I just really wanted to empathize with everyone and feel like the court is a place where they are not gonna come in and the judge is gonna throw a bunch of terms at them and not help them at all,” Woods said. “I didn’t want my courtroom to be a place like that. But I definitely think I crossed the line sometimes into the category of giving advice.”

Persistent coverage

Marshall R. Sumrall, a private criminal defense attorney in Durango, believed Woods was doing a good job. He noticed the newspaper, The Durango Herald, published a “slew” of opinion articles, editorials and letters to the editor that were critical of Woods during her time in office.

“The Durango Herald seemed to be opposed to her from the beginning,” he recalled. “In my opinion, the voters were influenced by their unfair reporting.”

Nikkolette Moyer, who worked for the court system between 2021 and 2022 and was assigned to Woods as a clerk, said the paper’s coverage bothered Woods.

“They didn’t really talk about Anne in the most positive light. All of the articles they wrote about her, there was nothing ever positive,” Moyer said. “It was just really strange how they always picked her out.”

Senior editor Trent Stephens told Colorado Politics that he had “not detected a bias or known of an uncorrected inaccuracy” in The Herald’s coverage of Woods. Woods acknowledged the paper did not publish anything factually inaccurate, but argued its reporting about her sensationalized certain cases or failed to mention key facts.

The paper was not the only venue for conversation about Woods’ approach to judging. A post on Reddit, with 89 comments, featured a discussion ostensibly about her, but veered into the merits of restorative justice and criminal justice procedure.

“Be honest with yourself: If you were the defendant — and we are all just a moment and a mistake away from becoming the defendant — you would want someone with compassion, integrity, and principles sitting behind that bench,” wrote one commenter.

“Repeat offenders need to be locked up, rehabilitation be damned,” responded another.

Then the radio ads started.

The party chair

Dave Peters is the chair of the La Plata County Republican Party. He also happens to be a member of the judicial performance commission that received information about Woods’ performance and deliberated confidentially about its recommendation to voters.

Before the election, the county party ran radio ads for 10 days, including against Woods. Peters estimated the group spent $1,000 specifically on her. The GOP also posted a voter guide that recommended Woods not be retained, with an explanation.

“Judge Woods is a far-left activist Judge, with an abysmal track record. This Polis appointee has shown time and again a blatant disregard for public safety and the rule of law,” the guide explained.

Peters denied any impropriety given his dual roles as commissioner and party chair.

“My views on the performance commission are based solely on the performance standards laid out by the state,” he said.