Incumbent District Attorney for the Eleventh Judicial District Bernadine Martin is hoping to hold her seat and win reelection in November, but her opponent Grant Birtcher worries that not everything is getting prosecuted properly under her watch.
A district attorney represents the government in criminal cases, including felonies and misdemeanors. To do this, they need help. In an interview with the Sun, Birtcher voiced his concerns about a lack of staff in Martin’s office.
Currently, Martin only has her Chief Deputy and two contract attorneys working under her.
Birtcher said the office actually needs about nine or ten prosecutors to properly prosecute criminals. He said he’s got five attorneys who have unofficially said they would come work with him if he won the District Attorney election.
“It says a lot when no one wants to work for the current DA,” he said. “It’s unfortunate, but it’s the reality of it.”
Martin addressed Birtcher’s staffing concerns, saying her office is currently working on retaining attorneys. They’ve put ads out on job websites, including LinkedIn.
But she also has some concerns of her own, mainly surrounding Birtcher’s own ability to properly prosecute cases. She said that the people he’s looking to hire may find themselves with conflicts of interest at the district court level. She explained that she’s worked with three of four attorneys he’s looking to hire, and they’re all former defense attorneys.
“I don’t know if the public understands that Grant Birtcher will not help the county,” she said. “He can’t with the conflicts of interest piled up with the four defense attorneys [he’s looking to hire]. What worries me is that the drunk drivers will get away, because one of those four attorneys was a defense attorney for drunk driving cases.”
In her three and a half years as DA Martin said she’s only had three cases she had to dismiss herself from due to a conflict of interest: one defendant was an employee’s relative, another case involved a local politician, and the final one was a suspect she’d defended about 10 years prior.
WHAT EACH CANDIDATE HOPES TO ACCOMPLISH
If she is reelected, Martin hopes to continue her approach to DWIs. She said she’s a big believer in second chances.
“A few will go to the Department of Corrections, because if it’s a murder then we have to argue for that,” she said. “But if it’s a first, second, third, or even a fifth or six DWI, we’ll give them a chance by putting them on supervised probation. And obviously if there’s a violation we look for incarnation. We give them a chance [and hope] that supervised probation will help them not to drink and drive. People are going to drink, they can do it at home all they want. But do not drive.”
Birtcher said he hopes to tackle drug-related crimes by helping those who struggle with addiction.
“If we can help somebody rather than punish them, and if they’re not hurting anybody but themselves, then I think some sort of drug rehabilitation program would be more beneficial,” he said. “[I want to] take each case on an individual basis and really try to see people get the help that they need.”
THE CANDIDATES’ BACKGROUNDS
Before she was elected as the DA, Martin served as the assistant DA and as an attorney for the Navajo Nation.
She received her law degree from the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona.
Unlike Martin, Birtcher didn’t plan on going to law school. He is a former Marine Scout Sniper, with two combat tours in Iraq on his resume. He was honorably discharged from service in 2007.
After his time with the Marines, Birtcher went on to get his bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Criminology. He planned to use the degree in some form in the Marines, but his plans soon changed. While he was completing his bachelor’s degree, many of Birtcher’s professors started telling him he should look into law school. He decided to take the plunge and graduated from the Arizona Summit Law School in 2013.
Birtcher has worked as an attorney for multiple entities, including the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority and the Navajo Nation Gaming Enterprises. He also worked for the previous DA, but ultimately decided to leave the office in 2019.
He said that all of his experiences, especially his time in the Marines, taught him how to be a leader.
“I know what it’s like to lead people, and that office really just needs a leader,” he said. “I know I’m up for the task.”
Birtcher is half-Navajo, and has lived in Gallup with his wife and two kids for 10 years now. He was born and raised in Fort Defiance, Arizona. He said his ultimate goal in running for the DA office is to make the community a safer place.
By Molly Ann Howell
Managing Editor
