{"id":304,"date":"2006-06-20T14:10:00","date_gmt":"2006-06-20T20:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/06\/judge-locatelli-defends-lawsuit-against-city\/"},"modified":"2006-06-20T14:10:00","modified_gmt":"2006-06-20T20:10:00","slug":"judge-locatelli-defends-lawsuit-against-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/06\/judge-locatelli-defends-lawsuit-against-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge Locatelli defends lawsuit against city"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/5892\/2386\/1600\/Locatelli%2C%20Jim.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;\" src=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/5892\/2386\/200\/Locatelli%2C%20Jim.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>Las Cruces Municipal Judges James T. Locatelli found himself defending his lawsuit against the city Monday during his interview for the vacant district court judgeship.<\/p>\n<p>Locatelli and the other municipal judge, Melissa Miller-Byrnes, are seeking a reimbursement of more than $100,000 they spent to defend themselves against ethical complaints filed by the city attorney\u2019s office in 2004. They claim the city has reimbursed other judges for defense costs in the past, and the city\u2019s failure to reimburse them is arbitrary and a violation of the separation of powers doctrine.<\/p>\n<p>The dispute began in 2004, when the judges publicly blamed prosecutors for the dismissal of drunken driving and domestic violence cases and called prosecutors and police officers incompetent.<\/p>\n<p>Locatelli, whose name was not recommended to Gov. Bill Richardson by Monday\u2019s judicial nominating commission, was asked by District Judge Robert E. Robles why he did not disclose the lawsuit in the appropriate section on his application for the district judgeship.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s strictly an oversight on my part,\u201d Locatelli said.<\/p>\n<p>When asked to elaborate on lawsuit, Locatelli said he and Miller-Byrnes \u201cfeel that the city does have an obligation to pay our legal fees in that matter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Deputy District Attorney Amy Orlando, another member of the commission, asked whether Locatelli saw a conflict in suing attorneys who appear before him in court. She said she believed there was a conflict because the attorneys are supposed to appear before Locatelli and because the city pays his salary.<\/p>\n<p>Locatelli disagreed, saying the dispute has been ongoing for two years, and the city attorney\u2019s office never asked for recusals until the judges filed the lawsuit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not a conflict,\u201d Locatelli said.<\/p>\n<p>Locatelli defended the lawsuit and his criticism of the city attorney\u2019s office as \u201cproper\u201d and \u201cappropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI did what I thought was right at the time,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ll continue to do what I think is right in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Las Cruces Municipal Judges James T. Locatelli found himself defending his lawsuit against the city Monday during his interview for the vacant district court judgeship. Locatelli and the other municipal judge, Melissa Miller-Byrnes, are seeking a reimbursement of more than $100,000 they spent to defend themselves against ethical complaints filed by the city attorney\u2019s office [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}