AURORA | A panel of attorneys and laypeople has named a trio of Aurora residents as finalists to replace a besmirched judge who is set to resign at the end of the month from the state’s largest judicial district, the state Judicial Department announced Wednesday.
A seven-member commission on May 18 nominated Aurorans Marques Ivey, Cajardo Lindsey and Cheryl Ann Rowles-Stokes to fill the impending vacancy of 18th Judicial District Court Judge Natalie Chase, who announced her resignation last month when the state Supreme Court censured her for using racial slurs around colleagues, among other infractions.
In early 2020, Chase, who is white, asked a Black female court staffer “why Black people can use the N-word but not white people, and whether it was different if the N-word is said with an ‘er’ or and ‘a’ at the end of the word,” according to a six-page Supreme Court order. The staffer, a family court facilitator, told officials that she felt trapped in the conversation as she was returning with Chase in her personal vehicle from a work engagement in Pueblo.
All of the nominees named to replace Chase are Black.
Chase has not been working since her public censure, though she will remain on the state payroll until May 31, a spokesperson for the Colorado Judicial Department confirmed in April.
Her annual salary of $173,248 will now be inherited by one of the three candidates named to replace her.
Ivey, who was elected to the Aurora Public Schools Board of Education in 2017 and currently serves as the entity’s treasurer, is a criminal defense and personal injury attorney at a private practice in Aurora. He unsuccessfully applied for another spot on the 18th Judicial District Court bench last summer.
Rowles-Stokes is currently an Arapahoe County Court judge who previously worked as a chief deputy district attorney in the same jurisdiction for more than a decade.
Lindsey is currently a personal injury attorney at the Kaudy Law Firm in Englewood. He’s also worked as an actor in stage, film and television roles for nearly 20 years, and he appeared in the film “MacGruber” in 2010, according to his IMDB page.
Gov. Jared Polis now has about two weeks to select the next jurist for the state’s largest judicial district, which serves more than 1 million people in four counties.
Colorado is one of 14 states to nominate state court judges via some version of the Missouri Plan, which employs nominating commissions that forward preferred applicants to the governor’s office for final appointment, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. More than 20 other states select judges by election, 10 others use a unilateral gubernatorial appointment, and two states — South Carolina and Virginia — let state legislators select judges.
District Court judges in Colorado serve an initial two-year term after being appointed, according to the Colorado Judicial Department. Judges at the district-level then stand for re-election every six years.
The public can send comments to the Governor’s Office on any of the candidates via email here.
What about asians? three blacks, no whites, no hispanic, no asian, no american indian ,,, seriously blacks are not the only minority in the usa. Looks to me exactly what it is……