The JPEC is made of up 15 individuals – 7 lawyers and 8 non-lawyers – who are appointed to staggered terms by the Supreme Court of New Mexico. Commission members are selected from nominations by the Governor, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Speaker of the House, President Pro Tempore, House Minority Leader, Senate Minority Leader and President of the State Bar.
Members are appointed to represent divergent professions, backgrounds and geographical areas of the state.
Members go through an approval process and agree to donate a significant amount of time to evaluate judges midway through their terms in office as well as when they are standing for retention.

Denise Torres
Chair
Las Cruces
JPEC MEMBER SINCE 2008

Anna M. Aragon
Commissioner
Las Vegas
JPEC MEMBER SINCE 2022

Karen O. Cortese
Commissioner
Fort Sumner
JPEC MEMBER SINCE 2008

Nate Gentry
Commissioner
Albuquerque
JPEC MEMBER SINCE 2018

Delmus L. Gillis II
Commissioner
Clovis
JPEC MEMBER SINCE 2021

Laura Howell
Commissioner
Silver City
JPEC MEMBER SINCE 2013

Lee Hunt
Commissioner
Santa Fe
JPEC MEMBER SINCE 2018

Patricia L. Quintana
Commissioner
Taos
JPEC MEMBER SINCE 2014

Richard Reese
Commissioner
Albuquerque
JPEC MEMBER SINCE 2014

Anita Sanchez
Commissioner
Rio Rancho
JPEC MEMBER SINCE 2015

Scott Sandlin
Commissioner
Albuquerque
JPEC MEMBER SINCE 2017
Scott Sandlin retired in 2016 from a 40-year career as a newspaper reporter in New Mexico.
For nearly three decades, she wrote about courts and judicial affairs for The Albuquerque Journal.
Sandlin studied at the Centro Andino, a University of New Mexico program in Quito, Ecuador, and graduated from UNM with a degree in journalism and Spanish.
She interned at the Santa Fe New Mexican, spent a decade as a reporter and editor writing about the Navajo Nation and politics at the Farmington Daily Times, covered environmental issues and politics for the Albuquerque Tribune and wrote about legal issues for the weekly New Mexico Lawyer, before joining the Journal.
She has served on boards of the New Mexico League of Women Voters and Albuquerque Press Women.

Jeannie Watson
Commissioner
Carlsbad
JPEC MEMBER SINCE 2020
Jeannie Watson worked in legal administration for many years in Carlsbad and Las Vegas, Nevada, before beginning her current career as a sales and marketing executive in the long-term care industry. Her experience includes working with lawyers involved in criminal defense, business and general law. She also worked closely with the juvenile public defender's office in Carlsbad. In the private sector, she founded and served as principal of a real estate development company in Las Vegas prior to returning to her hometown in New Mexico.
Watson is a former member of the New Mexico Legal Secretary Association, volunteers on the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce Retirement Council and is active in the nonprofit organization, Creative Housing Solutions, and the Giving Tuesday global generosity campaign.