By Matt Masich, LAW WEEK COLORADO
DENVER — A commission of lawyers and non-lawyers will meet in October to interview candidates to succeed outgoing Colorado Supreme Court Justice Alex Martinez. The normally 15-member Colorado Supreme Court Nominating Commission features two members appointed.
Gov. John Hickenlooper recently appointed Ira J. Paulin to the spot on the commission reserved for a non-lawyer from the 4th Congressional District, which stretches across northeastern Colorado from Fort Collins to the Oklahoma border. Hickenlooper, Attorney General John Suthers and Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael Bender jointly appointed Charles Tingle to a spot reserved for a lawyer from the 7th Congressional District in the suburbs of Denver.
Martinez is stepping down Oct. 31 after 14 years on the state high court. Monday was the deadline to apply to succeed Martinez on the high court; 23 lawyers submitted applications.
The nominating commission will meet to review applications on Oct. 3 and will interview select candidates on Oct. 11 and 12. They will give Hickenlooper a list of three finalists, probably on Oct. 13; he then has 15 days to choose one to take Martinez’s place on the court, which means we should have the name of our next justice by Oct. 28.
More than two-thirds of the commissioners will be carryovers from the group that met last year to pick the three finalists for the court seat that eventually went to Justice Monica Márquez. That vacancy saw 31 applicants, from which the commission picked 15 to interview before narrowing down the list to three nominees: Márquez, district court Judge David Prince and state appeals court Judge Bob Russel.
The 15-member commission is composed of a lawyer and a non-lawyer from each of Colorado’s seven Congressional districts, as well as an at-large non-lawyer. The chief justice is an additional non-voting member of the group.
Commissioners serve six-year terms. Lawyer members are selected by the governor, attorney general and chief justice; non-lawyer members are selected by the governor.
Here’s a look at the justice-makers.
Lawyers
1st CD: Richard Holme, unaffilliated. Holme, a partner at Denver’s Davis Graham & Stubbs, has been a litigator in Colorado for more than 40 years. A member of the prestigious American College of Trial Lawyers since 1983, Holme has also served six terms on the Colorado Bar Association’s Board of Governors and two terms on the Colorado Supreme Court’s Grievance Committee.
2nd CD: S. Lamar Sims, Democrat. Sims is chief deputy district attorney in the Denver DA’s office. Sims, who has been with the office since 1981, has taught at the Denver Police Academy and Harvard Law School’s Advocacy program. He serves as the office’s liaison to local law enforcement agencies.
3rd CD: Alex Tejada, Democrat. Tejada, partner in Durango firm Crane & Tejada, has been licensed in Colorado since 1976.
4th CD: Richard Gast, Democrat. Gast is a fourth-generation Colorado attorney and shareholder at Fort Collins law firm Myatt Brandes & Gast, where he practices real estate, business, banking and estate planning law. He is a Colorado delegate to the American Bar Association, is on the University of Northern Colorado board of trustees and is past chair of the Colorado Legal Aid Foundation.
5th CD: Martin Nussbaum, Republican. Nussbaum is a partner in Rothgerber Johnson & Lyons’ Colorado Springs office, where he helps lead the firm’s religious institutions practice. Nussbaum represents a cross-section of religious groups, including multiple Roman Catholic archdioceses. He also represented New Life Church in its termination of Ted Haggard.
6th CD: April Jones, unaffiliated. Jones is managing attorney at Jones Law Firm, a Greenwood Village family law firm. Both Gov. Bill Ritter and Gov. Bill Owens appointed her to the Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Board, where she is now vice chair. She is also a board member of Colorado Legal Services, and is past president of the Sam Cary Bar Association.
7th CD: Vacant: Charles Tingle, Republican. Tingle is chief deputy district attorney in the First Judicial District. A 1984 graduate of the University of Colorado Law School, Tingle has been with the DA’s office for more than two decades, where he manages the prosecutors in four district court divisions.
Non-lawyers
1st CD: Alicia Cuarón, Democrat. Cuarón was a corporate executive and leader in the Latino community when she resigned from the company she founded to become a Franciscan nun. She has since founded a number of programs to help the state’s Spanish-speaking immigrant population, including the Bienestar Family Services program.
2nd CD: Jay “Drew†Clark, Republican. Clark is a retired math teacher who finished his career at Horizon High School. He is also a one-term state representative from eastern Boulder County, elected in 1992. These days he “ride[s] bikes and read[s] books.†Last year, Clark was part of a four-man team riding in the Race Across America.
3rd CD: Mary Stengel, Democrat. Stengel is a practicing OB/GYN in Durango. She completed her bachelor’s and doctorate degrees at the University of Mississippi and completed her residency at the San Bernardino County Medical Center in California.
4th CD: Ira J. Paulin, Republican — Paulin is a wheat farmer and cattle rancher from Holly, the town on state’s rural eastern plains. He served multiple terms on the Mined Lands Reclamation Board as a representative of agricultural interests.
5th CD: Dick Celeste, Democrat. Celeste, governor of Ohio from 1983-1991, has served as president of Colorado College in Colorado Springs since 2002. He was U.S. ambassador to India during the second Clinton administration and sits on the board of the Independent Strategic Assessment Group, United States Northern Command.
6th CD: Bruce Alexander, Democrat. Alexander has since 2000 been president and CEO of Denver-based Vectra Bank, which has 38 full-service branches across Colorado. Before that, he was executive director of the Denver Urban Renewal Authority, and spent the previous 20 years managing other banks.
7th CD: Lynn Johnson, Republican. Johnson is the director of Jefferson County Human Services. Before that she was chief of staff for policy for Gov. Bill Owens and chief of staff for Lt. Gov. Jane Norton. She has also managed the Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs and the Head Start State Collaboration Office. She started her career as a probation officer before becoming a mental health specialist.
At-large: Dorothy â€Deedee†Decker, Democrat. Decker, with husband, Peter, owns and operates the Double D Ranch in Ridgway. The ranch, which the Deckers bought in 1974, covers 1,400 acres near the Dallas Divide. 
