{"id":23451,"date":"2025-02-20T14:34:03","date_gmt":"2025-02-20T21:34:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/clani-washinawatok-is-first-native-judge-in-new-mexicos-11th-district\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:36:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:36:19","slug":"clani-washinawatok-is-first-native-judge-in-new-mexicos-11th-district","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/clani-washinawatok-is-first-native-judge-in-new-mexicos-11th-district\/","title":{"rendered":"Clani-Washinawatok is first Native judge in New Mexico\u2019s 11th district"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image naviga-align-left alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=02d55c9d-d449-52a3-af1d-ecccad6f452a&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"1072\" height=\"1556\" alt=\"District Judge Brenna Clani-Washinawatok\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">District Judge Brenna Clani-Washinawatok<\/span><span class=\"credit\">cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>A Farmington attorney has become the first Native American appointed to serve as a district court judge in the 11th Judicial District of San Juan and McKinley counties.<\/p>\n<p>Brenna Clani-Washinawatok was appointed to the bench by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to succeed retired District Judge Daylene Marsh.<\/p>\n<p>Clani-Washinawatok has served as a child-support hearing officer, domestic violence commissioner and domestic relations hearing officer for the district court since 2022.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is a great honor and humbling experience to serve the people of San Juan and McKinley counties as a judge,\u201d Judge Clani-Washinawatok said. \u201cI am guided by the rule of law, and look forward to working with the dedicated employees and judges of the court to provide fair and impartial justice for all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Clani-Washinawatok is a fifth-generation master Din\u00e9\/Navajo weaver, born of the Ta\u2019neeszahnii clan and born for the T\u00e1chii\u2019nii clan.<\/p>\n<p>She was born in Shiprock, and graduated from Gallup High School. She received a bachelor\u2019s degree from Stanford University and graduated magna cum laude from the University of New Mexico School of Law in 2005.<\/p>\n<p>Clani-Washinawatok previously worked as an attorney in the Child Support Services Division of the New Mexico Health Care Authority, an assistant district attorney in 11th Judicial District, a staff attorney for the Navajo Nation Department of Justice, and a senior policy analyst for the New Mexico Indian Affairs Department.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is a privilege to welcome Judge Clani-Washinawatok to the bench,\u201d Chief District Judge David R. Pederson said. \u201cShe has served with distinction on the court as a hearing officer and commissioner working on child support, parentage, divorce and custody cases as well as petitions for domestic violence orders of protection.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She will take the oath of office next month.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to Judge Clani-Washinawatok, there are six Native Americans serving as judges on district, metropolitan and magistrate courts in New Mexico. That includes four magistrate judges in McKinley and San Juan counties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Farmington attorney will be sworn in next month<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23452,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23451"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78127,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23451\/revisions\/78127"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23451"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}