By Molly Ann Howell
Managing Editor
More than six months after former District Attorney Bernadine Martin resigned, her successor, John Bernitz, continues his efforts to rebuild the McKinley County District Attorney’s Office from the ground up.
Martin stepped down rather than face trial for claims of misconduct. For years, news outlets, including the Sun, reported that she routinely ignored crime victims and dropped cases at an alarming rate, allowing alleged criminals to walk free.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham appointed Bernitz to pick up the pieces—a role that pulled him straight out of retirement in April.
Bernitz had initially retired from the legal profession in 2023 after a decades-long career, which included time as an assistant district attorney under Martin and a previous stint running a Gallup criminal and family law practice.
He originally agreed to step back into public service when the governor reassigned a majority of Martin’s cases to Eleventh Judicial District Division I District Attorney Jack Fortner. At the time, Bernitz stepped in merely to help sort through the crippling backlog; he had no idea Martin would ultimately resign.
When Bernitz officially took over, the operational strain was severe.
The office was down 17 staff members, and when Martin departed, only Bernitz and one other attorney remained to manage the entire county docket. By June, however, a new attorney joined the team, allowing them to start auditing the damage left behind.
“We are taking a hard look at those missing cases, and I think we’ve found most of them,” Bernitz told the Sun in May. “We’re trying to ascertain whether they’re viable or if we can refile them.”
A few months later, that recovery effort is gaining real momentum.
Bernitz has expanded his legal team to six attorneys out of nine budgeted slots and cut overall staff vacancies down to six. With more hands on deck, the office has made a visible dent in its workload.
A year ago under Martin, the office sat overwhelmed with more than 800 pending cases handled by a single attorney. Today, Bernitz and his team have reduced that number to 680—even while taking on 20 to 30 new criminal referrals every week.
That backlog includes several high-stakes matters. The office currently has 10 open homicide cases: two defendants have raised competency issues, five await trial dates, and three have jury trials scheduled for early 2027.
Beyond the numbers, Bernitz is focusing on restoring public trust and improving communication with victims.
“The most frustrating thing for these people is that they never got a call back, and nobody would talk to them,” Bernitz said. “I’m trying to improve our bedside manner with the public and victims. I think that accounts for a lot of the problems Martin had—she never returned victims’ phone calls and didn’t give them the answers they wanted to hear.”
Local law enforcement agencies have welcomed the shift. McKinley County Sheriff James Maiorano III praised Bernitz’s proactive communication, noting that Bernitz sat down with the Sheriff’s Office early on to identify critical cases that had fallen through the cracks. Bernitz and his staff now regularly attend Maiorano’s weekly command meetings with investigative lieutenants to review cases and build clear plans for prosecution.
Bernitz is also reshaping pretrial strategy by pushing to keep high-risk suspects in jail while they await trial. In the past, courts frequently released suspects, allowing repeat offenders to return to the streets and commit further crimes.
“If 20% of the people in the community are causing 80% of the problems, then honing in on those repeat offenders and keeping them locked up for a bit really helps,” Bernitz said.
That aggressive stance on pretrial detention is already showing results. Officers report that targeted detentions have noticeably reduced daily crime in problem areas across Gallup, proving that detaining just a few prolific offenders can make an immediate difference for community safety.
