{"id":43300,"date":"2021-12-11T02:55:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-11T09:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/6th-judicial-district-judge-in-southwest-colorado-submits-resignation\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:12:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:12:55","slug":"6th-judicial-district-judge-in-southwest-colorado-submits-resignation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/6th-judicial-district-judge-in-southwest-colorado-submits-resignation\/","title":{"rendered":"6th Judicial District judge in Southwest Colorado submits resignation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"William
William Herringer was sworn in as judge in April 2013 by former 6th Judicial District Judge Gregory Lyman. (Durango Herald file)<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Sixth Judicial District Judge William Herringer has announced his upcoming retirement. Herringer\u2019s last day with the district is scheduled for March 9.<\/p>\n

In an interview Friday with The Durango Herald<\/em>, Herringer, 56, said he has reached a point in his career where it makes sense to start working less.<\/p>\n

He was sworn into the judgeship on April 17, 2013, but he started his legal career in October 1993, as a public defender. Herringer worked as a lawyer for 20 years and served as a judge in La Plata County for nearly nine years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been an absolute privilege to be able to serve the state of Colorado and our district and La Plata County,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s an incredibly rewarding but also challenging job.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge complemented his \u201cextraordinary colleagues and staff\u201d and said the people who work in the 6th Judicial District are amazing.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople often have negative things to say about government,\u201d he said. \u201cIf they could see how hard the people in this building work and how seriously they take their job, I think that that would really go a long way to change the public\u2019s view of public servants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Making the right decision is usually harder than one might suspect, Herringer said. He said in his role as judge he tries to look at things with an open mind, listen to people and get the best understanding of the law that he can in order to make the best possible decision.<\/p>\n

He said 50% of the people in his courtroom would disagree with pretty much any decision he makes. Sometimes, everybody leaves unhappy. But Herringer tries to bring his best to a challenging and important job, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re making decisions about people\u2019s lives, often about people that are strangers and (without) as much information as you\u2019d like to have,\u201d he said. \u201cI really tried to listen to people and be fair and make the best decision possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Herringer said not too much has changed during the past nine years, but there is a \u201cgreater sensitivity\u201d to providing greater access to justice. But he noted the judicial system is a large institution dictated by the Colorado Legislature, and it does not change quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not nimble,\u201d he said. \u201cI think there\u2019s signs that it\u2019s headed in the right directions in some aspects, but I think there\u2019s always going to be room for improvement.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said it is tremendously difficult to put people into prison. He described cases where children have been victimized or neglected as \u201cincredibly difficult to deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other challenging cases are homicides \u2013 where somebody has lost a loved one.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing you can ever do to make those victims feel even remotely that justice has been done,\u201d Herringer said. \u201cThey\u2019ve lost somebody, you can\u2019t replace them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The district judge said he wants to keep working in some capacity, but he doesn\u2019t know what that will be. Although Herringer is still contemplating his options for the near future, he doesn\u2019t have any plans to wave goodbye to Durango, where he\u2019s worked his whole career.<\/p>\n

cburney@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

William Herringer has served on bench since 2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43301,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1078,133,28,1515,2760],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-43300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-6th-judicial-district","tag-courts","tag-headlines","tag-judiciary-system-of-justice","tag-retirement"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43300","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=43300"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85650,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43300\/revisions\/85650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43300"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=43300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}