Gilbert “Gil” Martinez, a veteran judge and a fixture in the El Paso County judicial community for more than four decades, has died.

A two-time El Paso County chief judge and former public defender, Martinez died suddenly Monday while on a hunting trip, according to his family. An official cause of death has not yet been determined. He was 72.

A native of Trinidad who grew up in the Denver area, Martinez graduated from the University of Colorado at Denver with a bachelor’s degree in engineering before deciding to pursue a career in the judicial field. After obtaining a law degree from CU Boulder, he began his legal career at Pikes Peak Legal Services before joining the Colorado Springs Public Defender’s Office, where he served as director for the final four years of his 11-year tenure there.

“He truly cared about making sure people received justice,” said Joanie, Martinez’s wife of 51 years.

Martinez accepted a judicial appointment in 1989. During his time on the bench, he presided over a wide variety of cases, including lawsuits, domestic disputes and murder trials. He developed a reputation for being dogged in his pursuit of justice, even after surviving an assassination attempt in 2001.

“For a while, he had to go armed, and he needed to be escorted into the courthouse,” said Debbie Cdebaca, Martinez’s sister-in-law. “But he never let that keep him from doing his job.”

A bullet flew into his living room and passed within a quarter-inch of his face.

Martinez was known to have made lifelong friends during his career, and one determined enemy — 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 was given a life sentence plus 288 years for murder and other crimes.

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 in a 2017 story as he was retiring. “It’s a great career.”

In 2005, Martinez was instrumental in an effort to expand the El Paso County Courthouse in response to a caseload that increased as the county’s population grew. He and a state courts administrator lobbied the public for support for the $46 million project and traveled across the state looking for design ideas once it was approved, Martinez told The Gazette in a 2017 interview.

Even though Martinez retired as a full-time judge in 2017, he continued to adjudicate cases across the state, served on numerous local boards and was a passionate advocate for education, his family said.

“He gave back so much,” Cdebaca said. “We would ask him to slow down and he’d say, ‘I can’t. There’s more to be done.’ He couldn’t completely walk away.”

Martinez is survived by his wife, Joanie, two children, seven grandchildren and a great-grandson.

“He led such a big life,” Cdebaca said. “This is an unbelievable loss.”

“He was a wonderful husband, father and grandfather, and we will all miss him,” Joanie said.

Funeral services have not been announced.