FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 
THE HONORABLE JERRY H. RITTER APPOINTED UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW MEXICO
 
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – The United States District Court for the District of New Mexico announced the appointment of Jerry H. Ritter as the District’s newest United States Magistrate Judge effective September 5, 2017. The appointment is located in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
 
The Honorable Jerry H. Ritter was a District Judge for New Mexico's Twelfth Judicial District (Otero and Lincoln Counties) from 1997 to 2017 and served six years as Chief Judge for the district. He is a graduate of Cloudcroft High School, New Mexico State University and The University of New Mexico School of Law. From 1987 to 1992, he practiced law in Anchorage, Alaska with Robert M. Goldberg & Associates and served as general counsel to Ahtna, Inc., an Alaska Native Regional Corporation. After returning to New Mexico, he was in private practice until 1994 when he joined the District Attorney's Office for the Twelfth Judicial District. While on the New Mexico trial bench, Judge Ritter served on the New Mexico Judicial Standards Commission for eight years, on the New Mexico Sentencing Commission since its creation, on the statewide Chief Judges’ Council Budget Committee, first as a rural court representative and later as chair, as a New Mexico delegate to the American Bar Association's National Conference of State Trial Judges, and on other court committees. He is a former president of the Rotary Club of Alamogordo and a volunteer for his church and the Boy Scouts of America. He is married with six adult children.
 
The duties of a United States Magistrate Judge are demanding and wide-ranging in both civil and criminal cases. Magistrate Judges conduct preliminary proceedings in criminal cases, trials and dispositions of misdemeanor actions, discovery, and various other pretrial hearings in civil cases. They also preside over trials, civil cases upon consent of the litigants and other matters as may be assigned. The basic authority of a United States Magistrate Judge is specified in 28 U.S.C. § 636. Magistrate Judges are appointed for a term of eight years, and can be reappointed to additional terms.
 
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