The New Mexico Supreme Court has been asked to discipline Las Cruces Municipal Judge James T. Locatelli for improperly holding two attorneys in contempt and for failing to recuse himself from cases in which he should not have been involved.
The Judicial Standards Commission filed its petition for discipline Tuesday. It seeks a purging of the contempt charges, a formal reprimand, formal mentorship, an ethics course, and reimbursement of the commission’s costs and expenses.
At issue is a shoplifting case from 2004 that was later appealed by the defendant’s attorney to district court. After the appeal, Locatelli issued contempt citations for then-Assistant City Attorney Richard Jacquez, who argued for the city on the appeal, and the attorney who argued the appeal for the defendant, Marcia Milner, according to the commission’s petition.
If the high court accepts the commission’s petition, Locatelli will become the sixth judge in
The commission asked the high court to discipline Locatelli and Municipal Judge Melissa Miller-Byrnes in 2005 because of a 2004 letter the judges wrote to the Las Cruces Sun-News alleging incompetence by police and prosecutors. The court dismissed the complaint against the judges related to the letter, but disciplined Miller-Byrnes for calling Jacquez a “smart-ass.”
Both judges sued the City of
Locatelli was issued a cautionary letter by the commission in 2004 after pornographic e-mails were found on his city-owned computer at the court. Such letters are normally confidential, but Locatelli made his public when he applied for a district judgeship last year.
This is a complicated issue and it will take some time to sort through it. I’ll have much more on this later this afternoon including, hopefully, an interview with Locatelli.