File photo.

PREVIOUSLY

A lawsuit challenging Humboldt County Public Defender David Marcus’s legal eligibility to hold his job can move forward following a ruling this morning by visiting Judge Marjorie Carter. The county had filed a demurrer, asking the court to toss the case for lack of a legal basis for complaint, but Carter denied that motion, ordering the county to respond to the allegations within 15 days.

Local attorney Patrik Griego, of the firm Janssen Malloy, is pursuing the case. His suit alleges that Marcus is not eligible to hold the public defender position because he was not a practicing attorney in California during the year before he was hired, as required by the single sentence that comprises California Government Code Section 27701.

The county, meanwhile, argues that while Marcus didn’t personally appear in any California courts, file any pleadings or get paid for any legal services in the state, he does meet the letter of the law because he was licensed to practice in the state and did some work for a Bay Area firm from his home in Florida.

There’s precious little — if any — evidence documenting that work, as Thadeus Greenson has noted in his coverage at the North Coast Journal.

Judge Carter also denied a county motion asking the court to strike many of the allegations made by current and former attorneys in the Public Defender’s office, Griego told the Outpost this morning. Many of the attorneys in the office have complained that Marcus is unqualified to hold his job; five of them have left since he was hired in February.

Griego said that after the county responds to his petition — which, again, it must do within 15 days — he will move to set the case for a hearing. “I’m going to move as fast as possible,” he said.