It took nearly a full year since he was nominated for William Martinez to make it to today, when he will be sworn in as Colorado’s newest federal judge.
But that journey — made more arduous by a gridlocked Senate confirmation process — pales next to the one Martinez has made in his life. Born in Mexico City, the son of a truck-engine mechanic, he lawfully immigrated to Chicago’s south side as a young boy, became the first member of his family to go to college, earned his citizenship, then graduated from the University of Chicago law school, one of the nation’s most prestigious. He’s worked as a dishwasher, a cabdriver and a factory worker. He’s worked for prosecutors and defense attorneys. He’s represented large corporations and poor individuals.
And now, as he becomes the first immigrant to serve on the federal bench in Colorado, Martinez has allowed himself a brief glance back.
“I feel proud of what I’ve been able to accomplish in my life and career through hard work and dedication,” he said recently in the nearly bare Denver law office where he has worked in private practice for the last decade. “I’ve always had a very strong desire to do what I could do to add to the amount of justice in our society.”
President Barack Obama nominated Martinez, who specialized as an attorney in employment law, in February 2010 to be a U.S. District Court judge. His confirmation stalled in the U.S. Senate after Republicans raised concerns over Martinez’s work on an American Civil Liberties Union legal panel.
Martinez said it was frustrating to watch critics focus on “isolated aspects” of his background rather than the whole of his career. And though he believes his confirmation struggle reflects why changes need to be made in the Senate’s approval process, he said he is happy now to move forward into his new role.
Martinez said he wants to be an even-handed, thoughtful judge, respectful of both sides in a case. Though a Democrat, Martinez said he has hired a Republican to serve as one of his law clerks.
Damian Arguello, a former president of the Colorado Hispanic Bar Association who supported Martinez’s nomination, said Martinez will bring integrity to the bench. Martinez headed the association’s ethics committee for a number of years, Arguello said.
And Arguello said Martinez’s presence on the bench — he will be one of two Latinos among the six active federal district judges in Colorado — will help make the court a place where anyone can be certain of receiving a fair hearing.
“It raises the overall accountability to have that kind of diversity,” Arguello said.
Martinez will be sworn in today in a private ceremony attended by his wife, Judith Shlay, and his former law partners.
He will immediately have 225 civil cases already in the system re-assigned to him.
Criminal cases will start coming his way too in a couple of months.
“I think,” Martinez said, “it will be the honor and privilege of a lifetime.”
