{"id":35893,"date":"2023-02-09T02:28:57","date_gmt":"2023-02-09T09:28:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-governor-selects-matthew-margeson-to-be-dolores-county-judge\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:27:56","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:27:56","slug":"colorado-governor-selects-matthew-margeson-to-be-dolores-county-judge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-governor-selects-matthew-margeson-to-be-dolores-county-judge\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado governor selects Matthew Margeson to be Dolores County judge"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"District
District Attorney Matthew Margeson of the 22nd Judicial District has been appointed by Colorado Gov. Jared Polis to be Dolores County judge. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Gov. Jared Polis on Wednesday appointed Matthew G. Margeson to be Dolores County Court judge in the 22nd Judicial District.<\/p>\n

The vacancy was created when Polis appointed Anthony Nathaniel Baca to the bench in the 6th Judicial Court District in Durango.<\/p>\n

Margeson is the district attorney for the 22nd Judicial District, which serves Dolores and Montezuma counties, and he has worked as a prosecutor for the office for nine years.<\/p>\n

He was elected district attorney in 2020 and served as assistant DA from 2017 to 2021, and deputy DA from 2014 to 2017. Margeson worked in a private practice in Denver from 2007 to 2014.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel a sense of gratitude to be able to continue to serve the community,\u201d Margeson said Wednesday about the appointment. \u201cI always envisioned this as the next step in my career \u2013 to transition from an advocate role to a judicial officer.\u201d<\/p>\n

He will preside over misdemeanor cases, civil matters and trials, and will issue protection orders and hand down sentences, as well as handle other duties.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy approach is to maintain the dignity of the bench that my predecessors established to effectively ensure that when the people of Dolores County step into court, their voices will be heard, and they will obtain justice through fair proceedings,\u201d Margeson said.<\/p>\n

He said he will miss the staff, people and work of the DA\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m grateful for the opportunity to keep working in the law and achieve good outcomes for the community I love,\u201d Margeson said.<\/p>\n

The annual salary for the Dolores County judge is $35,181. The initial term of office of a county judge is a provisional term of two years; thereafter, the incumbent county judge, if approved by the voters, has a term of four years.<\/p>\n

This appointment will create a vacancy in the Office of the District Attorney in the 22nd Judicial District.<\/p>\n

Next week, Polis will announce a process for receiving and evaluating applications for that position and a timeline for appointing someone to that vacancy.<\/p>\n

Margeson said he will work with the governor\u2019s office and 22nd Judicial District to ensure a smooth transition.<\/p>\n

Margeson must relocate to Dolores County, a requirement of the job. He resides in Dolores in Montezuma County.<\/p>\n

He earned a bachelor\u2019s degree from the University of Michigan in computer engineering in 2004 and a law degree from the University of Denver\u2019s Sturm College of Law in 2007.<\/p>\n

The other nominees for Dolores County judge were Anne Deyell-Lawrence of Cahone and Montezuma County Attorney Ian MacLaren of Dolores.<\/p>\n

jmimiaga@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

District attorney served as prosecutor for nine years; Polis will name new DA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35894,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[837,28,29,76],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-35893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dolores-county","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-u-s-22nd-judicial-district"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35893","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=35893"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83161,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35893\/revisions\/83161"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35893"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=35893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}