Michael A. Gonzales

Michael A. Gonzales has served on the Twelfth Judicial District Court since October 2011 and was its chief judge from January 2020 to July 2023. He hears criminal, civil, juvenile and misdemeanor cases. Voters retained him in 2020 with 73.54 percent of the votes cast on the question: 16,115 yes and 5,798 no.

Before joining the district court he spent ten years as a deputy district attorney in the Twelfth Judicial District and then served as the Alamosa County Court judge. He earned a political science degree from Creighton University in 1993 and graduated from the University of Colorado School of Law in 1996. He sat on the board of the Caring for Colorado Foundation from 2010 to 2016 and joined the board of the Robert Hoag Rawlings Foundation in 2022.

The Twelfth Judicial District Commission on Judicial Performance voted 6 to 0 that he meets performance standards, with two commissioners absent and two vacancies on the commission. Of attorneys responding, 100 percent agreed that he meets the standards; of non-attorneys, 89 percent agreed.

The commission writes that his overall performance "as a district court judge was well above the required standards", that among the district's judges up for review his "scores were consistently some of the highest in the District" and that his "written and oral decisions are thorough, concise, and communicated efficiently." It adds: "There were no concerns from the Commission regarding fairness or bias on the part of Judge Gonzales towards any party."