Governor appoints Anastasia Martin to fill vacant northern NM judgeship

SANTA FE — The general counsel for New Mexico’s state aging department has been appointed to a vacant judgeship in the state’s 1st Judicial District.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Tuesday appointed Anastasia Martin to fill the spot on the bench that was created when Mary Marlowe Sommer retired at the end of last month.

Martin, whose appointment officially begins June 28, is currently the general counsel for the New Mexico Aging and Long-Term Services Department.

Before that, she worked for nine years as chief deputy district attorney for the 1st Judicial District Attorney’s Office in Rio Arriba County.

The 1st Judicial District is based in Santa Fe, but it encompasses Rio Arriba, Los Alamos and Santa Fe counties. The district currently has nine sitting judges.

Martin’s court docket is expected to be based at the historic Rio Arriba County District Courthouse in Tierra Amarilla, which was built in 1917 and was the site of a courthouse raid in 1967 amid a long-simmering land grant dispute.

That’s because Judge Jason Lidyard, who has presided over cases at the Tierra Amarilla courthouse the last several years, is expected to shift full-time to Santa Fe, 1st Judicial District Chief Judge Bryan Biedscheid confirmed Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Martin was one of three applicants for the vacant judgeship. A bipartisan Judicial Nominating Commission panel met last month and recommended two of the applicants for the governor to decide between — Martin and Elizabeth Allen.

Judicial salaries in New Mexico are set by a formula, with district court judges receiving roughly $216,000 per year after a pay increase was approved by lawmakers last year.

That salary level makes New Mexico judges the 11th highest paid in the nation, according to data from the National Center for State Courts.

Under state law, New Mexico district court judges must run in an initial partisan election after being appointed. They must then stand for retention elections every six years thereafter, with retention requiring at least 57% of voter support.