PROVIDENCE — The Judicial Nominating Commission ended up having a sufficient number of candidates to interview yesterday as it prepares to recommend finalists for a District Court vacancy.

So on Tuesday the commission will hold a public hearing regarding five candidates for the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Walter Gorman. After the hearing, the commission will recommend at least three of them to Governor Carcieri.

The five candidates are:

•Joseph A. DiPietro, senior vice president and general counsel for Kent Hospital, in Warwick.

•J. Terence Houlihan Jr., a Newport lawyer and former special assistant attorney general.

•Margaret M. Lynch-Gadaleta, the Pawtucket city solicitor and a sister of Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch.

•Laura A. Pisaturo, director of advocacy and legal services for Day One, The Sexual Assault & Trauma Resource Center, and a former deputy chief of the attorney general’s criminal division.

•Paul D. Ragosta, legal counsel to the state auditor general and a son of recently retired Superior Court Judge Vincent A. Ragosta.

Originally, the commission had been scheduled to interview 10 semifinalists yesterday. But since then, one candidate has been appointed to another judgeship. And the legislature has extended a law that allows Carcieri to choose from prior lists of finalists. So there was a chance that seven other semifinalists would withdraw from yesterday’s interviews because they are on prior lists and are going to be eligible for the vacancy in any case.

If all seven withdrew, the commission would have faced a conundrum because it would have had only two candidates to interview, and it must recommend at least three finalists for each vacancy.

But only four of those seven candidates withdrew from yesterday’s interviews. Those four, who remain eligible for the vacancy, are:

•Christine S. Jabour, a District Court magistrate and a sister of Sen. Paul V. Jabour, D-Providence.

•John E. Martinelli, a Providence Probate Court judge and a former Providence Housing Court judge.

•George M. Muksian, an assistant public defender and former chief of legal services for the Department of Labor and Training.

•James V. Murray, a member of the state Ethics Commission and managing attorney for the Amica Mutual Insurance Co., in Providence.

Lynch-Gadaleta, Pisaturo and Ragosta went ahead with the interviews, although they will remain eligible no matter how the commission votes on Tuesday. The commission interviewed DiPietro and Houlihan for the first time.

The commission will hold Tuesday’s public hearing at 5:15 p.m. at the Department of Administration building, at One Capitol Hill.

efitzpat@projo.com