{"id":23465,"date":"2025-02-19T14:06:59","date_gmt":"2025-02-19T21:06:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-selects-new-municipal-judge\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:36:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:36:21","slug":"dolores-selects-new-municipal-judge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-selects-new-municipal-judge\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolores selects new municipal judge"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kristen
Kristen M.M. Tarrin. (Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The town of Dolores recently selected a new municipal judge, and her name is Kristen M.M. Tarrin. She starts on March 28.<\/p>\n

She will replace incumbent Municipal Judge Beth Padilla, who is resigning effective Feb. 28.<\/p>\n

Tarrin was one of two to apply and interview for the role at a Dolores Town Board meeting Jan. 27. The board unanimously voted in her favor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do have judicial experience and experience in making decisions,\u201d Tarrin said at the meeting. \u201cI love the town of Dolores \u2026 and I would love to be of service to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tarrin also is the Dolores County Court judge, Dove Creek\u2019s municipal judge and a magistrate in the 22nd Judicial District. She also handles Montezuma County domestic relations cases.<\/p>\n

The commitment for the new role is minor, as municipal court convenes once a month on the third Friday in Dolores. It typically lasts an hour, attorney Jon Kelly said at the meeting.<\/p>\n

Kelly went on to explain that the \u201cjob is to primarily preside over Municipal Court.\u201d<\/p>\n

That involves things like traffic tickets, bear ordinances, dogs and occasionally disorderly conduct, he said. And, of course, presiding over hearings and trials, plus sentencing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve decriminalized our code, so there\u2019s typically no jail time,\u201d said Kelly.<\/p>\n

Under the town\u2019s code, the judge does have the power to issue a warrant for someone to enter a building, \u201cbut I don\u2019t think that\u2019s actually ever happened,\u201d said Kelly.<\/p>\n

He added that since 2019, \u201cI think we\u2019ve done two jury trials.\u201d<\/p>\n

Durango-based attorney Ethan Sumrall was the other candidate to interview that night.<\/p>\n

Sumrall said he\u2019s appointed to defense cases, and has worked in municipal courts in Cortez, Durango and Pagosa Springs, and has thus \u201chandled anything you can see in a municipal court.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s going on his third year in his practice, and said that he\u2019s interested in the role \u2013 and municipal court in general \u2013 \u201cbecause if I\u2019m going to be a lawyer, I want to be in court. And what better way to do that than to be a judicial officer of some kind?\u201d<\/p>\n

Since both Tarrin and Sumrall were licensed attorneys \u2013 something Dolores\u2019 code prefers \u2013 Kelly said the decision really comes down to experience, which Tarrin decidedly has more of.<\/p>\n

Plus, she lives in Dove Creek, which the board agreed is akin to Dolores \u2013 at least compared with Durango.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just really want to be more part of this greater Four Corners community,\u201d Tarrin said when Dolores Mayor Chris Holkestad asked what interested her about the position.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, I live in a different county, but Dolores County, Montezuma County \u2013 they\u2019re all part of the same area. Really, just to become part of your community.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kristen M.M. Tarrin will start on March 28 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23466,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[44,28,60,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dolores","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23465","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=23465"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78136,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23465\/revisions\/78136"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23465"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}