From Teacher To Judge To Time Off -- Otero Plans To Retire After Two Decades On King County Bench

It's hard now to imagine someone confusing Carmen Otero the judge with Carmen Miranda the entertainer, but almost 25 years ago, Otero changed her name to Shannon, just to be safe.

It was 1971, and she'd just graduated from law school. She wanted to be taken seriously, which required a name that didn't conjure up images of a woman dancing with a flower in her teeth.

She added a new last name, too, Wetherall, which came with her second husband. She wasn't a judge then. She was a 38-year-old former schoolteacher and mother of two with a fresh law degree looking for a new life in a new city.

Otero, who retires from the King County bench at the end of the month after having spent most of her legal career as a judge, has a story familiar to women who came of age in the '40s and '50s.

Her dreams weren't very big in the beginning. She taught school after graduating from college in 1951 because there happened to be a job available. She married and had a son, then a daughter, but she wanted something more.

"I knew I wanted to do more than teach." In 1968, she decided that law school was the answer. "I never thought of myself as more than a mother and a wife. That was the ultimate. Law school and the women's movement changed that. They suddenly opened doors to me, new possibilities."

Staying connected to women helped her to land her first judgeship. She had worked as a Bellevue teacher, then for the state attorney general's office after moving to Washington state. In 1976, she was the attorney for the Bellevue School District when someone at a women's networking meeting told her about an open judgeship.

She applied at the last minute and won the appointment to the bench in the Northeast District Court. There were complaints about her being an affirmative-action appointment, about her lack of experience and about her having moved to Kirkland just in time to make the appointment legal.

The political fight that spilled out when she ran for a full term in the fall won her allies and friends who continue to support her.

In 1979, then-Gov. Dixy Lee Ray appointed Otero to the King County Superior Court. As the only Hispanic judge in the state at that time, she became a role model.

Terry Jurado, an administrative law judge who once worked as Otero's bailiff, says: "I'm now a judge, and I think Carmen is responsible for that. She has been a real inspiration to me. She was a wonderful mentor."

In 1988, she was given an achievement award by the state Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. That spurred her to reclaim her name, so she started off 1989 as Carmen Otero, formerly Shannon Wetherall.

The Oteros are part of New Mexico's landed aristocracy. She grew up on the family ranch and in Santa Fe.

"Santa Fe didn't have prejudice," she says. Everyone seemed the same. "Fathers worked, mothers stayed home. And in Santa Fe, everything Hispanic is important."

But she recognizes that not everyone is as fortunate as she was.

Sitting on the bench in her robe, Otero has an illuminating view of the world. Some weeks it's one murder case after another.

"I don't know how inner-city people raise children today, all the violence and drugs around. My heart aches for the parents. I admire those families that have been able to raise their children and keep things together."

Seeing this part of life every day has affected the way she lives her life. "I'm more cautious. I never was cautious before."

She plans to expand her social-service commitments after she steps down. But she'll leave time for her grandchildren and her roses. The ones in her garden, not in her teeth.