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Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Judge Races Galore in 1st District Four Appointees To Be Voted on
By Vic Vela
Journal Staff Writer
Each of three judges in the 1st Judicial District appointed to the bench since last year will face primary challenges in June.
And when the governor makes a decision on a fourth appointment for a newly created district judgeship, that person will be campaigning to hold on to the seat before he or she barely has a chance to be fitted for a robe.
Voters in the 1st Judicial District — which includes Santa Fe, Rio Arriba and Los Alamos counties — are faced with the high number of district judge races because of recent spate of judicial turnover due to retirements or promotion and because the Legislature last month created a new judgeship for the district.
The governor fills such vacancies by appointment, but the appointees have to go before voters in the first round of elections following appointment — in this case, the 2010 primary and general elections.
On Tuesday, all 12 candidates who submitted signatures for the four judgeships are Democrats — no surprise considering the heavy Democratic tilt of the district's voters.
Here's a breakdown on the races featuring recent appointees:
• District Judge Sheri Raphaelson, who handles criminal and civil cases out of Rio Arriba County, was sworn in as judge in April, after her appointment by Gov. Bill Richardson to replace Tim Garcia, who was named to a position on the state Court of Appeals. She will get a primary challenge from 4th Judicial Deputy District Attorney Joseph E. CampBell, who handles cases out of Santa Rosa, and Yvonne Quintana, an Española attorney.
• District Judge Sarah Singleton, who was appointed to take over as a civil court and family law judge in early January, replaced retiring Judge James Hall. Her opponent in June will be Peter Culbert, a civil attorney in Santa Fe.
• Richardson recently named David Thomson, a deputy state attorney general who was director of the litigation division in the AG's Office, to replace retiring Judge Daniel Sanchez, who handled civil cases. The Democratic primary opponent for Thomson will be T. Glenn Ellington, himself a former judge.
Ellington, who used to be a Republican, was twice appointed to district judgeships and to the state Court of Appeals by former Gov. Gary Johnson, a Republican, but lost two judicial election bids as a GOP nominee in races against Democrats.
An incumbent, barely
The race to fill the brand-new judgeship created by the Legislature presents the unusual circumstance of a judicial appointee facing the voters only weeks after taking the bench. Five candidates filed Tuesday for the party's Democratic nomination for the post — and it's the same five people who previously filed applications for Richardson's appointment to fill the position temporarily.
Richardson will be required to name an appointee to the position before the primary, meaning someone will be, barely, an incumbent when voters go to the polls June 1.
The district's Judicial Nominating Commission announced Monday the applicants for the gubernatorial appointment. They are Margaret Kegel, a former domestic relations hearing officer in the 1st Judicial District who resigned in July; current district child support hearing officer Mary Marlowe-Sommer; and Santa Fe attorneys Michael R. Jones, Gary D. Elion and Katherine Ann Basham.
On Tuesday, all five filed to run as candidates in the June primary.
The nominating commission will meet March 25 to choose which of the applicants to send to Richardson as nominees for the appointment. Richardson will then have 30 days to pick an appointee from the names submitted by the commission.
According to Kevin K. Washburn, dean of the University of New Mexico School of Law and chair of the state's Judicial Nominating Commissions, Richardson — because of the 30-day deadline — can't wait until the primary and let Democratic voters choose whom he should name to the new judgeship.
Under these rules, it's conceivable that a person won't be appointed by the governor, much less sworn in, before April 25, just about five weeks before the primary voting.
The procedure leading to a gubernatorial selection in this case "is far more relevant at this stage of the election process" than when there is more time between appointment and election, Washburn said Tuesday.
Voters won't have much time to assess the job of Richardson's choice before they go to the polls, he noted.
The new position is for the district's eighth judge, who will primarily take on a domestic relations and domestic violence docket, a workload that had previously been undertaken by a hearing officer. To make room in the budget for the judgeship, the current position of domestic violence hearing officer will be scrapped.
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