Gov. appoints S.F. prosecutor to First District judgeship

Gov. Susana Martinez on Friday appointed Santa Fe prosecutor Jason Lidyard to a First District Court judgeship.

Lidyard, 36, was already running for the seat in the forthcoming primary election. It was vacated after Martinez named Judge Jennifer Attrep to the state Court of Appeals.

A nominating commission had recommended Lidyard to take Attrep’s place until the election.

Former Assistant Attorney General Matthew Jackson was the only other person to apply for the seat. He is running against Lidyard in the Democratic primary on June 5.

No Republican is seeking the seat. Whoever wins the Democratic primary is virtually guaranteed the judgeship.

The district covers Santa Fe, Los Alamos and Rio Arriba counties. Lidyard will be taking over a docket heavy with criminal cases.

Born in Fairview, Ohio, Lidyard told a nominating commission last year that Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird inspired him at a young age to become a lawyer. It was not because Lidyard idolized the novel’s main character — Alabama attorney Atticus Finch — but because he wanted to “battle injustice” and prevent the conviction of innocent people.

Lidyard’s father was in a pipe fitters union and his mother cleaned houses while he grew up on the west side

of Cleveland.

His father developed a drug habit that killed him, Lidyard said. His family moved in with his grandparents, who believed above all else in “loyalty to family and education.”

A graduate of the University of Maine School of Law, Lidyard formerly worked as a legislative staffer for the Colorado Legislature, in the Federal Defender’s Office in Portland, Maine, and as a prosecutor in Cleveland.

Lidyard has worked with in the Santa Fe District Attorney’s Office since 2011. He mostly has handled criminal cases and civil mental health commitments. He has also handled cases in a drug diversion program.