Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham this week appointed Melissa Kennelly to the position of Eighth Judicial District Court Judge, filling a seat vacated by Sarah Backus in advance of this 12 months. “It’s an awesome privilege to have this opportunity to function as a decision-maker for the humans of Taos, Colfax, and Union Counties,” Kennelly instructed The Taos News following her appointment. “I will work tough to be the first-rate judge I can be, to constantly improve my abilities, and to make legally sound and reasoned choices which can be in the satisfactory pursuits of our various communities on this corner of the state.”
Kennelly, a graduate of the University of New Mexico School of Law, has labored as a legal professional within the Eighth Judicial District Court in Taos since December 2018. She has served as a researcher for judges, a mediator for civil cases, and a unique project supervisor. Before she came to New Mexico, a press release from the governor’s office notes, Kennelly also served because of the first female police officer inside the Broadview Heights Police Department in Broadview, Ohio, from 1998 to 2004. Kennelly is a modern member and commissioner of the Acequia de Los Molinos. She became a member of the New Mexico State Bar Ethics Advisory Committee. She earned her law degree from the University of New Mexico School of Law in 2010 and was admitted to the New Mexico bar.
Kennelly turned into one of 3 candidates a nominating panel recommended to the governor on March 26 for consideration. The panel also nominated Tim Hasson, a deputy district attorney with the 8th Judicial District Attorney’s Office seeing that 2017, and Jeff Shannon, a Taos Magistrate Court Judge, for 2012. Although former Judge Backus spent her final years as a judge on the courthouse complex in Taos, Kennelly will start her tenure at the district’s office in Raton.
