A bullet that flew into his living room and passed within a quarter-inch of his face brought Gilbert “Gil” Martinez to a sobering conclusion.

“If someone wants to shoot you,” the veteran El Paso County judge said, “they can probably shoot you from a block-and-a-half away.”

How it feels to be in a sniper’s crosshairs was among the hard lessons that Martinez, who officially retired Monday, gleaned during a four-decade career in the El Paso County courts, nearly three of them on the District Court bench.

There, while presiding over big-ticket lawsuits, contentious domestic disputes and serious crimes including murder, Martinez made lifelong friends and one determined enemy – in notorious revenge-shooter Bruce Nozolino.

It was a contentious divorce in the late 1990s that brought Martinez head to head with Nozolino, a Colorado Springs Lockheed Martin software engineer and competitive shooter convicted in 2014 in a decade-spanning series of shootings that spiraled out of a case in Martinez’s court.

Nozolino is serving a life sentence plus 288 years for murder and other crimes; his convictions are under appeal.

The attempt on Martinez’s life came in October 2001, when two bullets came flying through windows into his family’s northeast Colorado Springs home.

After a lengthy investigation and four-year court process, Nozolino was convicted in that attack and three others, including a 2001 shooting that partially blinded John Ciccolella, who represented Nozolino’s ex-wife; and the 2008 slaying of a man she saw romantically during a period when the couple were separated.

Although the case dragged on for 10 years before Nozolino was arrested, it didn’t keep Martinez from donning the robes.

“I loved being a judge,” Martinez told The Gazette. “It’s a great career.”

It did affect Martinez’s sense of safety, however. After the shooting, he bought a pistol and obtained a concealed carry permit, arming himself whenever he wasn’t at work. He had a home security system installed. He put a halt to backyard barbecues.

He wrestled with the thought of putting his family in jeopardy.

“I signed up for this. They didn’t,” he said.

The 66-year-old Martinez served twice as El Paso County’s chief judge, a key administrator who supervises the county’s 50 judicial officers and a staff of hundreds in the probation office and the Clerk’s Office.

In 2005, Martinez helped marshal a major courthouse addition that brought much-need breathing room at a time when caseloads ballooned along with El Paso County’s rising population.

He and a state courts administrator lobbied the public for support for the $46 million project and traveled across the state to crib design ideas once it was approved, Martinez said.

The result was the so-called West Tower – a modern, gleaming accompaniment to a facility at 270 S. Tejon St. that otherwise wears its age on its sleeve.

In retiring, Martinez relinquishes his role as the judge overseeing the stalled prosecution of admitted Planned Parenthood shooter Robert Lewis Dear Jr.

The case against Dear, who claimed credit for a Nov. 27, 2015, shooting that killed three people, including a police officer, remains on hold while he is treated for a delusional disorder at the Colorado State Mental Health Institute at Pueblo – the result of a ruling by Martinez that Dear is too disturbed to understand the case against him.

Martinez’s successor as chief judge, William Bain, appointed himself to the case this month, raising the possibility that a fresh set of eyes could end Dear’s legal limbo. The defendant is due to return to court Aug. 24 for a competency update.

A native of Trinidad who grew up in the Denver area, Martinez began his career in civil engineering but found that something was missing. He signed up for law school at the University of Colorado at Boulder, setting the stage for a career as a deputy public defender.

Being a defense attorney introduced him to the “adrenaline rush of winning a trial,” and he relished the uphill battle involved in taking on police and government prosecutors.

Not once did he feel guilty about winning an acquittal, including in an attempted murder case, he said.

“If they can’t prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt,” Martinez said, “they don’t get to sentence a person.”

He served with the Colorado Springs Public Defender’s Office 11 years – the last four as a supervisor over the Colorado Springs office – before a District judge, the late John Francis Gallagher, encouraged him to consider a spot on the bench.

In addition to hearing cases, Martinez routinely visited schools to encourage children, especially minority children, to aim high with their educations and their careers.

Bain, who praised his commitment to the bench, called Martinez’s dedication to the community “limitless.”

Colorado Supreme Court Chief Justice Nancy Rice said Martinez developed a reputation as a “wonderful judge and wonderful chief judge.”

“I think it’s a tremendous loss for us, but I’m glad for him that he’s retiring and moving on,” she said.

Martinez, who plans to apply to fill in as a District Judge in retirement, voluntarily dropped his criminal docket after Nozolino’s arrest in 2010, in what he called a painful concession for someone who made a career in criminal law.

But even in the darkest periods that followed the attempt on his life, Martinez found sources of hope and comfort.

During a family meeting after the attack, his wife, Joanie, and their two children encouraged him to continue the work he loved.

“They told me, ‘If you want to be a judge, be a judge.’?”

He added: “They are very tough, and very supportive.”