Mayor Johnston Appoints Whitlock, Martelon to Denver County Court

Mayor Johnston Appoints Whitlock, Martelon to Denver County Court

Published on September 28, 2026

Mayor Mike Johnston today announced the appointments of Allen Whitlock and Kyle Martelon to the Denver County Court bench. The appointments fill vacancies created by the passing of Judge Andre Rudolph and the resignation of Judge Barry Schwartz.

Whitlock is the founding member and manager of Whitlock Law, LLC, where since 2022 he has represented clients in felony, misdemeanor and municipal matters throughout Colorado, as well as parents and family members in dependency and neglect cases. He also serves as a contract attorney for the Office of Respondent Parents' Counsel, the Office of the Alternate Defense Counsel and Colorado Court Appointed Counsel.

Whitlock previously served as a Senior State Public Defender in the Denver Trial Office of the Colorado Office of the State Public Defender from 2015-2022, where he handled significant caseloads in Denver County Court and Denver District Court, including homicides, sexual assaults and other crimes of violence. While there, he mentored new county court attorneys and developed and led trainings for new lawyers.

Earlier in his career, Whitlock completed certified legal externships with the Colorado Office of the State Public Defender and the Office of the Alternate Defense Counsel and represented indigent clients as a student attorney in the University of Denver Criminal Defense Clinic. Before law school, he taught English as a Second Language at rural middle and high schools in Thailand's Chaiyaphum Province with the Teach Thailand Corps.

Whitlock earned his Juris Doctorate from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law in 2015, where he was a Chancellor's Scholar, and his Bachelor of Arts in Honors English and Bachelor of Science in Earth and Environmental Sciences from Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, in 2011.

Martelon has served as a Magistrate in the Seventeenth Judicial District since 2024, presiding primarily over high-volume criminal dockets which include bond hearings, advisements, preliminary hearings, probation revocations, restitution, and traffic and misdemeanor matters. Martelon also regularly covers domestic relations, juvenile, small claims and civil protection order assignments.

Before joining the bench, Martelon was a partner, mediator and arbiter at Ciancio Ciancio Brown, P.C. from 2015-2024, representing clients in complex domestic relations and related civil matters and providing mediation and arbitration services. Martelon also authored the same-sex issues chapter of the Colorado Judicial Officers' Bench Bar Book. Martelon previously served as a Deputy District Attorney with the Denver District Attorney's Office in 2015 and as an associate attorney with Wedgle Epstein, P.C. (formerly Wedgle & Spahn, P.C.) from 2012-2015, where Martelon successfully litigated Colorado's first same-sex dissolution of a civil union case.

Earlier in Martelon's career, Martelon served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Jane A. Tidball in the First Judicial District from 2010-2012 and as a federal judicial intern for U.S. Magistrate Judge Craig B. Shaffer. Martelon serves as a Hearing Board member for the Colorado Supreme Court's Office of the Presiding Disciplinary Judge and is a member of the Colorado Bar Association's Family Law Section and the Colorado LGBTQ Bar Association.

Martelon earned a Juris Doctorate from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law in 2010 including membership in the Order of St. Ives, and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2004, where Martelon was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

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