{"id":777,"date":"2006-10-27T11:58:00","date_gmt":"2006-10-27T17:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/10\/childrens-court-candidates-have-interesting-pasts\/"},"modified":"2006-10-27T11:58:00","modified_gmt":"2006-10-27T17:58:00","slug":"childrens-court-candidates-have-interesting-pasts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/10\/childrens-court-candidates-have-interesting-pasts\/","title":{"rendered":"Children’s court candidates have interesting pasts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Both candidates for the Division 5 district judgeship in Las Cruces<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> have impressive r\u00e9sum\u00e9s. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

But it\u2019s the stories behind those pieces of paper that are most interesting.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Democrat Lisa Schultz says her story starts long before she was born. Much of her family was killed in the pogroms in Russia<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> and in World War II. But her paternal grandfather escaped to America<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> during World War II with a pair of brass candles his parents gave him to pay his way.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>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.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

He was.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

From those experiences, Schultz said, came her family\u2019s deep belief in the Jewish concept of \u201ctikkun olam\u201d \u2013 the need to repair or perfect the world.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cWe all feel lucky to even be on this Earth, and so it\u2019s important to be giving back,\u201d Schultz said. \u201cFor each person, it\u2019s important to find and pursue our own voice, and in doing so, be part of the tikkun olam.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Republican Janetta Hicks told her mother when she was five that she wanted to be the kind of attorney who said, \u201cI object,\u201d but it wasn\u2019t until she did a college internship with the district attorney\u2019s office in Las Cruces<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> in the mid-1980s that she discovered her passion for helping children.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Hicks\u2019 parents were foster parents, so Hicks grew up alongside children who were \u201ctrying 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.\u201d 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\u2019t serve him well, she said, and he never recovered.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cThe intervention was too late for him,\u201d Hicks said. \u201cJustice, for abused and neglected children, is early intervention.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The position both are seeking is as children\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Shultz\u2019s search for how she would help repair the world has been widespread. <\/span>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.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

She went on to Harvard<\/st1:placename> Divinity<\/st1:placename> School<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:place>, where she earned a double master\u2019s in ethics and Old Testament.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Schultz went to law school and then found her way to Las Cruces<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>, and has practiced law for 21 years. She has worked as an analyst and lawyer for the New Mexico Senate and has worked on criminal defense and civil cases. Schultz, who has been in a relationship with another woman for 31 years, has been an attorney and activist for gay and lesbian rights.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Schultz ran her own law firm from 1991 until being appointed judge.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Hicks took a different path. Though she started college with the intent of going into contract law, she found it bored her. Cornish\u2019s abuse case helped her find focus.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

After earning her law degree in 1989, Hicks worked for a year as an assistant public defender in Roswell<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>. She has since worked as a prosecutor for most of her career, but also worked for a year as a children\u2019s court attorney for the state\u2019s Children, Families and Youth Division.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Hicks has worked in every capacity an attorney can in children\u2019s court, and said that range of experience is a demonstration of her commitment and makes her the best candidate.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an area where you can make some real change. When they\u2019re children, there\u2019s still time to redirect their paths,\u201d Hicks said. \u201cI\u2019d like to be involved in that \u2013 instead of just punishment, positive changes, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t look to anyone else to have integrity if we don\u2019t have integrity ourselves,\u201d Schultz said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Both candidates for the Division 5 district judgeship in Las Cruces have impressive r\u00e9sum\u00e9s. But it\u2019s 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 Russia and in World War II. […]<\/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-777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777","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=777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}