Joey Darrah

Bill Simpson

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Park County District Court Judge Bill Simpson and Circuit Court Judge Joey Darrah are doing solid jobs and should stay on the bench, according to attorneys who’ve practiced before the pair.

Simpson and Darrah handle the vast majority of Park County’s court cases and both are up for retention this year. That means voters around the Fifth Judicial District (the Big Horn Basin) must decide whether the two local judges should keep their positions or be replaced by the governor.

If the results of a recent Wyoming State Bar survey are any indication, Darrah and Simpson have little to worry about: Dozens of lawyers who’ve appeared in front of the judges overwhelmingly support them both. They also gave the jurists the highest rating — “above adequate” — in over two dozen categories related to their demeanor, reasoning and more.

Judge Bill Simpson

Simpson was first appointed to the bench by Gov. Matt Mead in 2017 and retained by voters the following year.

Of the 54 attorneys who weighed in on his retention this time around, 45 of them, or 83%, said Simpson should remain on the bench; 87% had offered similar support in 2018.

As a district court judge, Simpson hears felony criminal cases, civil cases in which over $50,000 is in dispute, divorces, probate cases and juvenile proceedings, among other matters.

Although voters are technically being asked to consider a six-year extension of his service, Simpson is set to turn 70 and enter mandatory retirement in 2027.

Judge Joey Darrah

Meanwhile, this will mark Darrah’s first retention vote since Gov. Mark Gordon appointed him to the bench in late 2021.

In the bar’s survey, 83% of the responding attorneys — 19 of 23 — supported Darrah’s retention. If voters across the basin agree, he can serve another four years before going back on the ballot.

As a circuit court judge, Darrah handles a slew of misdemeanor criminal cases, collections cases, other smaller civil suits and protection orders, among others.

Judge Ed Luhm

Park County voters will also join Big Horn, Washakie and Hot Springs residents in weighing in on the performance of Circuit Court Judge Ed Luhm of Worland.

Luhm fared particularly well in the bar association’s poll, with 92% of responding attorneys (23 of 25) supporting his retention. Gordon placed Luhm on the bench in early 2019 and he was retained by voters the following year.

Justices Kate Fox and John Fenn

Voters across Wyoming are also being asked to weigh in on two members of the Wyoming Supreme Court: Chief Justice Kate Fox and Justice John Fenn.

In a joint voter guide, the Park County Patriots and Conservative Roundup political groups backed both Simpson and Darrah as “Good Guys,” but urged no votes on Fox and Fenn.

Park County Patriots Secretary Troy Bray said the opposition to Fenn and Fox mostly stems from a ruling the high court made in connection with the state’s abortion ban.

Wyoming legislators passed laws in 2022 and 2023 that generally prohibit abortions in the state, but Teton County District Court Judge Melissa Owens put them on hold while pro-choice advocates challenge the legality of the restrictions. Both in 2022 and last spring, the Wyoming Supreme Court declined Owens' invitation to step into  the litigation and determine whether the new laws violate Wyomingites' constitutional rights. 

"This court acknowledges it will likely be required, as some point, to rule on the constitutionality of Wyoming's abortion laws," Fox wrote in April's order, but she said the high court didn't believe they could answer Owens' questions without more facts. The justice sent the case back to the district court so that Owens could rule on the parties' summary judgment motions and potentially "refine and narrow the issues this [Supreme] Court will be called upon to determine."

The court had also declined to weigh in on the abortion litigation in 2022.

Bray called it a bad decision. In the Park County Patriots’ view, he said both Fenn and Fox are “further left than we’d like.”

The state’s lawyers saw the justices more favorably. Both received “above adequate” ratings in the bar association’s poll, with 86% of responding attorneys supporting Fox’s retention and 88% supporting Fenn.

Strong support

Of the 30 justices and judges standing for retention, 29 received support from a supermajority of the responding attorneys. The lone exception was Laramie County Circuit Court Judge Antoinette Williams, who had the support of 44.4% of responding attorneys; fellow Laramie County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Lee had the lowest support in the survey, around 35%, but he announced his retirement in August.

Beyond gauging support for retention, judges are rated on a scale of 10 to 100 in a variety of categories that cover their impartiality, integrity, knowledge, promptness and more.

Judges are provided with averages of their scores, but those figures are “suppressed,” or removed, from the public report. The public version only says whether a judge’s average score was above adequate (falling somewhere in the 70-100 range), adequate (40-69) or below adequate (10-39).

Of the 54 jurists evaluated in the 2024 Judicial Performance Assessment, all but seven received “above adequate” ratings in every category.

A total of 417 attorneys — representing roughly 25% of the Wyoming bar’s membership — participated in this year’s survey.

For more information about the retention process and to review the survey results, visit tinyurl.com/3ywxr9x4.

(Editor's note: The original version of this story referenced the wrong Wyoming Supreme Court ruling that played into the Park County Patriots' decision to oppose the retention of justices Kate Fox and John Fenn. The original version indicated that it was the court's decision to keep two lawmakers and a pro-life organization from  joining pending litigation over Wyoming's new restrictions on abortion. However, Park County Patriots' Secretary Troy Bray had actually faulted the court for not taking action on the case, which was a separate ruling. The Tribune regrets the error.)