Both candidates for the Division 5 district judgeship in
But it’s the stories behind those pieces of paper that are most interesting.
Democrat Lisa Schultz says her story starts long before she was born. Much of her family was killed in the pogroms in
When he arrived, he told the immigration official he was a tailor, and promised to be independent and a good American if he was allowed to stay.
He was.
From those experiences, Schultz said, came her family’s deep belief in the Jewish concept of “tikkun olam” – the need to repair or perfect the world.
“We all feel lucky to even be on this Earth, and so it’s important to be giving back,” Schultz said. “For each person, it’s important to find and pursue our own voice, and in doing so, be part of the tikkun olam.”
Republican Janetta Hicks told her mother when she was five that she wanted to be the kind of attorney who said, “I object,” but it wasn’t until she did a college internship with the district attorney’s office in
Then-Chief Deputy District Attorney Thomas Cornish was prosecuting a case in which a child was essentially starved to death by his parents. Hicks said that experience left a lasting impression on her.
Hicks’ parents were foster parents, so Hicks grew up alongside children who were “trying to recover from the trauma of abuse and trying to cope with the trauma of being taken out of their homes and put in the homes of strangers.” She recalls one foster brother who was placed in her home after his older, mentally ill sister put his hands in boiling water. The system didn’t serve him well, she said, and he never recovered.
“The intervention was too late for him,” Hicks said. “Justice, for abused and neglected children, is early intervention.”
The position both are seeking is as children’s court judge. Schultz was appointed to the job by Gov. Bill Richardson several weeks ago, and has the advantage of being able to call herself the incumbent.
Shultz’s search for how she would help repair the world has been widespread. Her parents are artists, so she grew up without a lot of money. To save for college, she took a job in high school with a neuroanatomy researcher and, in the course of washing test tubes, literally discovered a cell.
She went on to
Schultz went to law school and then found her way to
Schultz ran her own law firm from 1991 until being appointed judge.
Hicks took a different path. Though she started college with the intent of going into contract law, she found it bored her. Cornish’s abuse case helped her find focus.
After earning her law degree in 1989, Hicks worked for a year as an assistant public defender in
Hicks has worked in every capacity an attorney can in children’s court, and said that range of experience is a demonstration of her commitment and makes her the best candidate.
“This is an area where you can make some real change. When they’re children, there’s still time to redirect their paths,” Hicks said. “I’d like to be involved in that – instead of just punishment, positive changes, too.”
Schultz said her diverse past and her record of fighting for equity and fair access to the courts, in addition to her demonstration of her commitment to ethics, make her qualified.
“We can’t look to anyone else to have integrity if we don’t have integrity ourselves,” Schultz said.