Posts published by “Bruce McEwen”

When somebody runs for judge around here it’s nothing but a popularity contest for the voters. Unless you happen to know the candidate personally — and therefore can reasonably expect some kind of access or even leniency for your family and friends in future legal cases — there is no way to find out what kind of person you are voting for or against. That’s because candidates for judge do not have to — they’re even forbidden to — say how they’d rule in any given case, real or hypothetical. No other candidate for public office enjoys this kind of pig-in-a-poke protection.

More criminal cases come out of Covelo than any other sector in Mendocino County, and a lot of the violence results from long-standing family feuds passed down through the generations to young folks who would otherwise get along in a neighborly and helpful fashion. And now, to go with the numerous ancient ones, new blood feuds, these among young Hispanic families who have moved into the historically blood-drenched Round Valley over the last past decade.

At the preliminary hearing for Christine Kelsay, accused of embezzling half a mil from Geiger’s Long Valley Market in Laytonville, the evidence was sufficiently suspicious to hold her over for trial.