By Neela Eyunni, LAW WEEK COLORADO
DENVER — U.S. Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet have sent to President Barack Obama the names of six nominees to fill two vacant judicial seats on the U.S. District Court for Colorado.
The new judges will fill vacancies created with the departures of former chief judges Lewis Babcock and Edward Nottingham.
Nominees are Christina Habas, 2nd Judicial District judge, R. Brooke Jackson, 1st Judicial District chief judge, William Martinez, a partner at McNamara Roseman Martinez & Kazmierski in Denver, Lael Montgomergy, 20th Judicial District judge, Morris Ben Hoffman, 2nd Judicial District judge and John Walsh, a partner at Hill & Robbins in Denver.
“Each of these individuals would serve with honor on the bench,” Udall said in a statement. “Federal judges are appointed for life. For that reason, this was an extremely rigorous selection process.”
A 10-member bipartisan advisory committee created by the senators in April sent them a list of the candidates it selected. The panel reviewed 37 applications and interviewed the top 20, said Udall spokeswoman Tara Trujillo.
Both Udall and Bennet had been interviewing candidates for the position since the beginning of June.
Biographies of the candidates follow:
William Martinez
Martinez, a partner at McNamara Roseman Martínez & Kazmierski in Denver, practices employment and civil rights law.
Before joining the firm he served as regional attorney for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Denver, where he lead the Commission’s age discrimination class action charge against the Martin Marietta Corp. The suit involved 3,200 laid off employees and resulted in a settlement of nearly $200 million.
Martinez also worked at the Denver law firm Pendleton Freidberg Wilson & Hennessey, representing corporate and individual clients in employment, securities and commercial law cases. His legal career has also included a role in lawmaking. Martinez has testified before Colorado and Illinois legislatures on employment law issues and took an active role in drafting the Illinois Human Rights Act.
Born in Mexico, Martinez came to the United States with his family when he was a child. He received his B.S. in environmental engineering and his B.A. in political science from the University of Illinois and later went on to get his law degree from the University of Chicago.
Christina Habas
Since 2003 Habas has been a district court judge for the 2nd Judicial District, which covers Denver.
Habas is currently presiding over the murder trial of Denver Broncos cornerback Darrent Willilams.
Last year, she pleased some politicos and frustrated others when she ruled the statewide mill-levy freeze was an unconstitutional tax hike in the case Mesa County Board of Commissioners v. Ritter. The Colorado Supreme Court overturned the ruling in March on a vote of 6-1
As an attorney in private practice for two decades, she was a partner at the law firms Watson Nathan & Bremer and Bruno Bruno & Colin, where she worked in employment and civil rights law as well as personal injury and insurance. In the years before moving to the bench Habas specialized in representing law enforcement officers in civil, criminal and administrative cases.
Throughout her legal career, Habas has taught. She was an adjunct faculty with the University of Denver and taught with the National Institute of Trial Advocacy for more than a decade.
Habas received her bachelor’s and law degrees from the University of Denver.
R. Brooke Jackson
As district judge for the 1st Judicial District, Jackson predominantly hears felony and criminal cases.
After serving for five years, he was appointed chief judge for the district in 2003.
Jackson was a trial attorney in private practice for 26 years specializing in civil litigation, which included a stint as partner at Holland & Hart in Denver. Prior to being appointed to the Denver District Court, he also served as prosecutor for the town of Bow Mar
His latest Colorado Judicial Performance Review showed 72 percent of attorneys and 90 percent of non-attorneys strongly recommended he be retained.
Jackson attended Dartmouth College before earning his law degree from Harvard Law School.
He sits on numerous boards including the Jefferson County Community Corrections Board and the advisory group for the Jefferson County Mediation Services Program.
John Walsh
Besides being nominated for a federal judgeship, Walsh, a partner at Hill & Robbins in Denver, is also one of three candidates for the vacant U.S. attorney job in Colorado.
The Stanford Law School graduate was an assistant U.S. attorney from 1987 to 1995 in Los Angeles before serving as chief of the major frauds section of that office from 1993 to 1995, where he managed 35 assistant U.S. attorneys and took part in the high-profile investigation and prosecution of convicted racketeer Charles Keating.
Walsh was also appointed special attorney to the attorney general and ran the grand jury investigation of Gov. J Fife Symington of Arizona, who was found guilty of seven counts of bank fraud.
Born in Maryland, Walsh and his family moved to Colorado when he was 12 years old.
He returned to Colorado in 1995 and joined Holland & Hart’s Denver office, where he practiced civil litigation and the defense of white-collar crime before joining Hill & Robbins.
Lael Montgomery
Montgomery has been a district court judge for Boulder County since 2001.
Last year, she was nominated for a federal judgeship by then-Sen. Ken Salazar, but she and other nominees were passed over for Phillip Brimmer and Christine Arguello.
Montgomery presided over the high-profile case of Molly and Alex Midyette. Molly Midyette was convicted of failure to stop child abuse resulting in death of the couple’s son in 2007 and received a 16-year prison sentence.
Earlier this year defense attorneys for Alex Midyette asked Montgomery to recues herself from the case, alleging she was biased. Montgomery, however, declined to step down, and she sentenced Midyette to the same 16-year sentence as his wife.
The University of Colorado School of Law graduate also captured headlines during the case this year for denying the defense’s motion to ban cell phones and computers in the courtroom.
Prior to serving as district court judge, she served on the county court bench and as a deputy district attorney in Boulder.
Morris Ben Hoffman
Denver District Judge Morris Ben Hoffman who has been on the bench for 15 years, presides over criminal and civil cases.
During his last judicial review, 92 percent of non-attorneys and 84 percent of attorneys strongly recommend that Hoffman be retained, according to the Second Judicial District Commission on Judicial Performance.
After receiving his law degree from the University of Colorado School of Law in 1977, he entered private practice and specialized in bankruptcy and real estate law as well as commercial litigation.
Hoffman has been published in numerous law journals including the Duke Law Journal and Stanford Law Review. In 2000, he wrote a controversial article criticizing drug courts; he called them “administrative gimmicks.”
For 10 of his years as district judge Hoffman also presided over the Denver grand jury.
The American Board of Trial Advocates awarded Hoffman the Judicial Excellence Award in 2000.
Distributed by Colorado Capitol Reporters
