Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
QCS Managing Editor
The New Mexico Supreme Court Wednesday ruled against preventing Judge Albert Mitchell from applying for the judge position from which a slim majority of voters decided to remove him in the Nov. 4 general election.
The court denied a request for a writ that would have prevented Mitchell from applying for the position as the Tenth Judicial District’s only judge, saying the request was “premature,” according to Barry Massey, a spokesperson for the court’s administrative office.
The court decided that the time to challenge Mitchell’s application would be only after Gov. Susana Martinez re-appoints him to the bench, if that were to occur, according to Warren Frost, attorney for the committee that campaigned for Mitchell’s removal before the election. The committee filed the request for a writ with the supreme court.
After hearing arguments Wednesday, Mitchell said, the court recessed for about 15 minutes and came back to announce its unanimous decision against blocking Mitchell’s application.
The court said Frost’s motion was “without merit,” Mitchell said, “and the writ was denied.”
Mitchell said the court’s decision indicated the writ could not apply to the nominating commission that will screen candidates for Gov. Susana Martinez’s appointment of a judge for the Tenth District, because the commission has discretion in the matter.
Frost said, “we’re a little disappointed” in the supreme court’s decision.
“We’ve lost the battle, but not the war,” he said.
The committee filed its request for a “writ of prohibition” against Mitchell’s candidacy on Nov. 19, saying that allowing Mitchell to re-apply for a position from which voters decided to remove him “makes a mockery” of state laws that require voters to decide whether judges should be retained.
Mitchell responded to the supreme court on Monday with a challenge that stated:
• the supreme court should not have jurisdiction on the issue,
• that there is nothing in the law or rules for judicial nomination that prohibits Mitchell from filling a vacancy created by his non-retention, and
• that the arguments in the original writ request are not persuasive.
Mitchell said on Wednesday that the voters did not decide to reject him. The voters, he said, sent a message that the judge “should face a political race if he wants to keep his job.”
If he is re-appointed to the bench, he said, he would face a political contest to keep his job two years from now, anyway.
Mitchell and Don Schutte, who served as Tenth Judicial District judge from September 2007 to January 2009, are the only candidates who have applied for the judge’s position. Mitchell defeated Schutte in the 2008 general election to become the district judge.
