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The latest review of drunken-driving dismissals by the DWI Resource Center has Metro Court judges riled - again.

The Albuquerque nonprofit's bi-annual report shows 36 percent of all DWI cases in Bernalillo County Metro Court are dismissed. The report says individual judges dismiss as many as 50 percent of their cases.

But Metro Court spokeswoman Janet Blair said the report, like the group's 2004 version, is "very misleading."

"It's not clear to us what their methodology is," Blair said, and some dismissals are beyond a judge's control - the District Attorney's Office requested the dismissal, the defendant is dead or incompetent, or the case was determined to be a felony and not a misdemeanor.

In defense of the new report and its predecessor, Linda Atkinson, executive director of the DWI Resource Center, said the wide range of dismissal rates shows "significant use of judicial discretion. . . ." Judges ultimately are responsible for what happens in their courtrooms, she said in a statement.

According to figures from January 2003 to July 2006 compiled by the center, Judge Victoria Grant dismissed 51 percent of her DWI cases, the highest dismissal rate of the judges reviewed in the report.

In the 2004 report, Grant tied for the seventh in dismissal rates out of 16 judges review for that report.

Judge Frank Gentry presided over the fewest dismissed cases, 20 percent, according to the most recent report.

Other judges' dismissal rates ranged from 22 percent to 47 percent, according to the report. To be included in the compilation, judges had to have been assigned more than 100 cases each during that period. Some judges had more than 1,500 cases.

Blair said Metro Court does not track judges' DWI dismissal rates. She said the public would get a better understanding of judges' performance from the Supreme Court of New Mexico's Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission.

The commission reviews judge's knowledge of the law, friendliness in court and cooperation with law enforcement.