Last month, Humboldt County Counsel Jeffrey Blanck sent a 10-page letter to the California Supreme Court asking it to depublish an appellate court opinion issued back in October, and if you read that lower court opinion, which involved a case of alleged elder abuse, it’s easy to see why the County wants it deleted from the annals of published case law, where it would live in perpetuity and serve as legal precedent.

The ruling, written by First District Court of Appeals Associate Justice Kathleen Banke, serves as a blistering indictment of County employees. Some of her ire is aimed at caseworkers with Adult Protective Services but most of it is reserved for the County’s legal counsel, whom she accuses of deliberately misleading the trial court in a variety of ways. 

Over the course of the trial, Justice Barke says, the County’s attorneys relied on unsubstantiated hearsay, withheld critical evidence and misrepresented both the law and the facts of the case. 

“Humboldt’s lack of candor … was beyond the pale,” she states.

The case concerned