Copyright 2022 Albuquerque Journal
Over his 47-year career as a New Mexico attorney, former state legislator Victor Marshall has called out a state attorney general for alleged conflict of interest, filed a whistleblower lawsuit aimed at exposing state investment schemes and advocated for legislative ethics and campaign reform.
But his attempt to brand a respected pro tem judge as biased and unethical in presiding over a major water rights case may lead to the suspension of Marshall’s legal practice indefinitely.
The state Supreme Court on Wednesday is set to hear oral arguments as to whether Marshall should be disciplined for contending that now-retired Court of Appeals Judge James J. Wechsler was biased in favor of the Navajo Nation in approving a major water rights settlement in 2013.
Marshall, who represented non-Indian water users, wanted a new judge to be appointed to the case when he alleged that Wechsler had an undisclosed conflict of interest because he once worked for the Navajo Nation as a lawyer. Marshall also claimed in a court record that “the public might reasonably wonder whether the judge fixed this case for his former client.”
A state disciplinary board hearing committee found those assertions were false and were made with “reckless disregard” as to the truth.
Wechsler, who served 22 years on the state Court of Appeals before retiring in 2017, was appointed as a pro tem judge on the water case in 2009.
He worked on behalf of individual Navajos decades...
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