{"id":24339,"date":"2024-12-19T16:51:51","date_gmt":"2024-12-19T23:51:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-county-das-to-fill-vacancies-in-san-juan-county-office\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:52:10","slug":"montezuma-county-das-to-fill-vacancies-in-san-juan-county-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-county-das-to-fill-vacancies-in-san-juan-county-office\/","title":{"rendered":"Montezuma County DAs to fill vacancies in San Juan County office"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Jack
Jack Fortner<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The San Juan County District Attorney\u2019s Office has been down five attorneys, but when District Attorney-elect Jack Fortner takes office in January, many of those positions will be filled.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m looking for experienced prosecutors who can come on board and hit the ground running,\u201d Fortner said, in response to the staff shortage at the DA\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

Staffing issues have led to DA Rick Tedrow to bring in special prosecutors to handle high-profile cases, as more experienced prosecutors retire, move into private practice or move out of state.<\/p>\n

Recruitment and retention of attorneys in prosecutors offices has been a nationwide problem, according to the National District Attorneys Association.<\/p>\n

Fortner, however, began recruiting as soon as he learned he would be the new DA, and he began his search at other area district attorney offices including the Montezuma County office, from which he has recruited two attorneys and hopes to bring a third.<\/p>\n

Montezuma County Deputy District Attorney Margaret Carr and Deputy District Attorney Ronald Colquitt accepted job offers from Fortner and will begin Jan. 6 in San Juan County.<\/p>\n

Fortner also offered a position to Assistant DA Jason Eley, second in command to embattled DA Christian Hatfield<\/a>, who faces an investigation into a car crash in August. Eley and Hatfield previously ran a law office in Durango and worked in Farmington.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is a very experienced prosecutor. We want him to come,\u201d Fortner said, adding that Eley has not yet accepted his offer.<\/p>\n

Fortner stated that Carr is an experienced prosecutor, who previously worked in the San Juan County District Attorney\u2019s Office, and Colquitt is \u201can experienced litigator out of Colorado.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colquitt \u201cunderstands both sides,\u201d defense and prosecution, Fortner said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited about them,\u201d coming to work here, Fortner said, adding he has made an offer to a fourth individual, but she has not responded.<\/p>\n

San Juan County Chief Deputy District Attorney Dustin O\u2019Brien faces a drunken driving case. O\u2019Brien, 53, was arrested Sept. 15 and was charged with a misdemeanor count of aggravated DWI. He also was cited for leaving the scene of an accident, after reportedly crashing into a retaining wall.<\/p>\n

A special prosecutor, Harvey Means, assistant district attorney in the 8th Judicial District, is prosecuting O\u2019Brien\u2019s case, and Judge Thomas G. Pestak, of Sierra County, is the judge.<\/p>\n

An article published Jan. 26 in the American Bar Association Journal stated prosecutors are \u201cquitting in droves,\u201d and DA\u2019s offices are not receiving applications to replace those who are leaving.<\/p>\n

In response to this, the National District Attorney\u2019s Association conducted a survey of prosecutors in June 2024 to see why they stayed in their positions. There were 76 New Mexico prosecutors, who responded to the survey.<\/p>\n

Of those prosecutors, 53% stated they enjoy their work, yet 55% stated they considered leaving their employer. Those same attorneys ended up remaining in their positions, because they wanted to do justice for the community.<\/p>\n

Other top reasons for prosecutors staying in their jobs were student loan forgiveness, trial work and pay and benefits.<\/p>\n

In Fortner\u2019s case, he was a private practice attorney, who said he always wanted to be a district attorney. He convinced another private practice attorney, Gary Risley to work for him as chief deputy district attorney.<\/p>\n

Risley, who has been in private practice for 24 years, said he plans to handle the business side of things in the DA\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy background is not criminal law,\u201d Risley said, adding Fortner \u201cneeds somebody like a chief operating officer to manage the business side of the DA\u2019s office.\u201d<\/p>\n

The office had a \u201cmultimillion-dollar budget\u201d with \u201ca lot people \u2013 lawyers, staff and moving parts,\u201d Risley said.<\/p>\n

Risley, who has practiced business law and owned businesses, said he would like to bring a fresh set of eyes to the government agency and look at what types of \u201cefficiencies there are to be obtained.\u201d<\/p>\n

Risely said one in the office he will be \u201ctweaking the engine to get horsepower out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He hopes through doing this he can make the lives of staff easier.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s lawyers over there handling 100 to 200 cases each. That is a huge caseload,\u201d Risley said.<\/p>\n

This goes back to the issues of district attorney\u2019s offices not having enough prosecutors, and that is something Risley also hopes to address.<\/p>\n

He said many young attorneys coming out of law school are \u201cvery pro-defense,\u201d but the message he would like to share is that the job of a prosecutor \u201cis to see that justice if done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first part of justice is did we do it right,\u201d Risley said. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to violate anybody\u2019s rights. \u2026 We never want to bring cases where we are violating people\u2019s rights. We want to advocate for this community and for victim\u2019s rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Risley said prosecutors should work for \u201cthe best outcome for the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another part of the issue in recruiting and keeping prosecutors is the salaries are not high enough. \u201cA State Police officer\u2019s starting salary is more than what some of our lawyers are making,\u201d Risley said, adding the prosecutors are the individuals advising law enforcement on cases.<\/p>\n

He said Fortner will address this in the next legislative session.<\/p>\n

The last election had a theme of law and order. \u201cIt\u2019s not free,\u201d Risley said. \u201cYou have to put the resources into the system to ensure you can deliver law and order to the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to compete in a marketplace for these younger attorneys that are coming out,\u201d Risley said, adding that means \u201ccompensating those attorneys both at the starting levels and intermediate levels.\u201d<\/p>\n

Risley said he is looking forward to joining the office. \u201cI was very impressed with the lawyers over there. The staff they are dedicated. They\u2019ve got a good culture with the people there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other chief deputy district attorney is Brian Decker, who is employed by the DA\u2019s office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DA-elect Fortner hires Carr and Colquitt, wants Eley from Cortez<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24340,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-24339","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\/24339","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=24339"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78494,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24339\/revisions\/78494"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24339"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=24339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}