William B. Bain

William B. Bain was appointed to the Fourth Judicial District Court in 2010 and took office in January 2011. He was chief judge of the Fourth Judicial District from 2017 to 2024 and the first chief judge in Colorado to resume jury trials after the COVID pandemic restrictions. His docket is half criminal and half civil. Voters retained him in 2020 with 75.42 percent of the votes cast on the question: 242,069 yes and 78,877 no.

A sixth-generation Coloradan, he graduated from Middlebury College in Vermont and taught high school English in Texas for three years before attending Cornell Law School in New York. Before his appointment he spent ten years as a prosecutor in the District Attorney's Office and three years as an assistant city attorney for Colorado Springs, practicing civil litigation. The El Paso County Bar Association gave him its Ben S. Wendelken Award of Excellence in 2024.

The Commission on Judicial Performance voted 7 to 0 that he meets performance standards, with one absence and two recusals. The commission writes: "Although the response rate to distributed surveys was relatively low, Judge Bain received an overall score of 3.4/4 from respondents." A survey of district court judges conducted by the appellate judges rated him 3.6 out of 4, with one comment calling him a "superb judge in every respect".

The commission reports that the District Attorney's Office described him as "steady, thorough, and fair." It adds: "One concern was raised regarding calendar management and its potential impact on speedy trial deadlines." Judge Bain responded that he "has never missed a speedy trial deadline", and the commission writes that he "expressed a willingness to evaluate the concern and make improvements where appropriate."