To Be a Judge, Be Judged the Winner in This Poker Game

Flick-snap. Card to Jim Blancq.

It was just a friendly game-- except that it was held in the only courtroom in the Catron County Courthouse, and the dealer was District Judge Neil Mertz, come down off the bench in a business suit.

He used a pocketknife to tear the cellophane off a deck of cards and began shuffling. “All right,” he said. “Seven-card stud, all up.”

With a flick of the wrist, the judge drew the first card and snapped it down hard in front of Blancq.

Except for a fussy baby, the crowd fell silent.

It was about as big a crowd as you’re likely to get in a small town. The Fishers had strolled over from Elkhorn Realty. Jess Carey of the 3-Trees Gun Shop set aside his distaste for court proceedings to attend. The sheriff, the newspaperman, the county manager--indeed, nearly one-fourth of Reserve’s 400 souls were there.

But then, the stakes were high. To the winner would go the post of magistrate judge of Catron, New Mexico’s largest county (6,898 square miles along the Arizona border) though one of its smallest in population (about 3,000).

If that doesn’t sound like much of a pot, consider it in terms any gambler can understand.

With a salary of $53,500 a year, the job is one of the highest-paying in a county where the average annual income is $13,000, primarily from government employment and cattle ranching. Over a four-year term that’s $214,000, not including retirement and benefits.

As Blancq puts it: “It wasn’t just a little poker game.”

*

Another flick of the wrist. Card to Lena Milligan.

The players had arrived at this point the way so many candidates in small-town elections do: Their race had been declared a tie.

On Nov. 3, 1998, the returns initially had Milligan, 55, a cook at the senior citizens’ center and the Democratic challenger, defeating Blancq, 62, a retired Navy pilot and the Republican incumbent, 798 votes to 797. But the tally was reversed on recount, and Blancq took office.

Milligan filed a lawsuit challenging the results, and nine months later Mertz ruled the race a tie.

While even the Federal Election Commission doesn’t know the exact number, at least 15 states have laws providing for tied elections to be settled by lot, says Dick Smolka, publisher of the newsletter Election Administration Reports.

Flick-snap. Card to Blancq.

In the case of Milligan vs. Blancq, Mertz ordered the parties to convene at 1:30 p.m. Sept. 21 in the County Courthouse, a two-story brick building that is by far the tallest on Reserve’s Main Street, a badly paved road hugged by one motel, a bar and a handful of eateries.

With its shiny benches and bookcases stacked neatly with law books, the courtroom itself is modern enough but for the absence of air-conditioning. Ceiling fans and three windows provide the only circulation.

Mertz explained the “somewhat unusual” proceeding and asked each candidate and their party chairs to choose a method for breaking the tie.

“Cut of a deck of cards--high card,” Milligan proposed, with her party chairwoman concurring.

Blancq had something else in mind.

“I would prefer to play one hand of seven-card stud poker, all seven cards up. You be the dealer,” he suggested to Mertz. “The best five-card hand speaks for itself. We won’t draw any cards.”

Mertz pulled two decks of cards from his pockets. He also removed a package of dice and two half-dollars, confessing to the laughing crowd, “I made no provision for straws or other similar devices.”

With that, he came down off the bench, approached the counsel table and prepared to deal.

Flick-snap. Card to Milligan.

Not being a card player himself, the judge focused hard on the deal, worried he’d fumble the deck. The spectators, seated in four rows of benches behind the table, squirmed and squinted.

“Call ‘em out so we can hear ‘em!” someone shouted.

“All right,” Mertz said. “So far I’ve dealt to Judge Blancq: three of hearts, queen of diamonds. Ms. Milligan: 10 of hearts, six of diamonds.”

The audience settled back and listened for the next card. Blancq’s wife, seated on the right side of the courtroom with her husband’s supporters, bowed her head in prayer. Milligan’s kin, on the left side, simply watched.

Flick-snap. “To Judge Blancq,” Mertz intoned, “three of diamonds: one pair.”

Blancq’s face revealed nothing. He was, he thought to himself, surprisingly calm. But his faith in God had gotten him this far, and somehow he knew things would work out.

He glanced at his wife. Was she praying? he wondered. He supposed so.

Flick-snap. “To Ms. Milligan, two of diamonds.”

Milligan drew in a breath as she studied the cards. He had a pair, but she could be on her way to a diamond flush with the six and two of diamonds in addition to her 10 of hearts.

Her friends had persuaded her to run for this office, and she had thought it might be neat. Now she really wanted to win. The butterflies in her belly stirred as Mertz drew the next card.

Flick-snap. “To Judge Blancq, four of clubs.”

He still had one pair.

Flick-snap. “Ms. Milligan, jack of diamonds.”

Another diamond! She needed just two more for a flush.

Flick-snap. “Judge Blancq, queen of hearts.”

Two pair: threes and queens. Blancq had gained the upper hand.

Flick-snap. “To Ms. Milligan, ace of hearts.”

She had two hearts, the ace and the 10, and three diamonds, the six, two and jack. Compared with Blancq’s two pair, she still didn’t have much.

Flick-snap. “To Judge Blancq, four of diamonds. And Ms. Milligan, ace of clubs.”

Blancq now had three pair: queens, fours and threes. Milligan had one pair of aces. If she were to get one more ace, she could win with three of a kind. One more pair, and she could win with aces high. “Just one more,” Milligan thought desperately. “One more.”

Blancq wasn’t worried. He fully expected to get a full house; all he needed was another three, four or queen. Even if she got another ace or another pair, he would win.

Mertz paused and looked up at the two players.

“This’ll be the final card, will it not?” he asked.

“Mmm hmm,” Milligan nodded.

Flick-snap. “Judge Blancq, two of spades.”

It wasn’t a full house, but he could still win with two pair--as long as she didn’t get the right card.

Flick-snap. “Ms. Milligan, nine of diamonds.”

*

Blancq’s wife raised her head and thrust her arms in the air. “Praise you, Jesus! Thank you, Lord!”

Milligan’s husband and parents left the room.

From first card to last, the game took only a minute, 15 seconds. Still, in the words of one New Mexico judge who presided over an election-deciding poker game in the 1970s, the episode can best be described as “a slow torture.”

Milligan would certainly agree, although time has made her a little less bitter and more philosophical. “I just wasn’t very lucky that day.”

Blancq still has the deck of cards, with his and Milligan’s hands intact. He plans to display them in a shadow box and one day tell his grandkids how grandpa won an election in a hand of poker.