Author: Ryan Hutson

As one family sits through graphic photographs, testimony, and closing arguments for a second time in the Jake Combs’ murder trial, in a separate Humboldt County case, David Couch Jr. remains jailed as two long-delayed felony prosecutions inch toward trial.

The case of Jake Combs who says he shot a man to save his dog nears a jury verdict, a Eureka motel owner faces a wrongful death suit after two carbon monoxide deaths in the same room five days apart, and an accused repeat child molester has until today to decide whether to take a plea deal.

An alleged child molester’s jury trial was postponed, the CA Attorney General filed suit against Eureka construction company Mercer-Fraser, and murder defendant Jake Combs took the stand in his own retrial.

In one of several cases featured in this week’s courtroom recap, a Humboldt County defendant remains jailed nearly two years after prosecutors alleged he used an SUV to try to kill a deputy and two others.

A Cal Poly peeping Tom, a drug house with elder neglect victims, and Day 2 of a local murder retrial. It’s all inside Humboldt Courts today.

A retrial begins in one of Humboldt County’s most closely watched homicide cases, with jurors hearing emotional testimony and graphic details from the night Trevor Earley was killed in Alderpoint. Meanwhile, a judge has denied a new trial request for an Arcata man convicted in a long-running child sexual abuse case, and another defendant awaits sentencing in separate Humboldt cases.

Four very different cases move through Humboldt County courtrooms—from an Arcata City Council incident, to a murder retrial underway, a major development in the Nordic Aquafarms lawsuit, and a long-running double homicide case nearing sentencing.

Several cases moved through the court this last week–a Humboldt County judge ordered a hospital to hand over private medical records for confidential review Friday, as local courts also grappled with murder retrials, child sex abuse cases, and a no-bail hold on a man accused of crimes dating back nearly a decade.

Humboldt County court docket included a competency ruling for the man who torched his car on the courthouse lawn, a no-show from a disbarred attorney, and a split jury verdict that pushed a high-profile robbery trial to June.