Philo man pleads guilty to two felony sex charges in plea bargain. Thanks to California’s court fathers forcing the county to stop offering online criminal files, we won’t be able to keep reporting these felony cases like we had planned
Ryan Clayton Davis of Philo pleaded guilty on Monday to two charges of unforced sex offenses against a minor. Davis faces Up to 2 Years, 8 Months in prison. Sentencing will be on November 12, back in the Fort Bragg courthouse. Mendocinocoast.news had detailed the charges in this story:
Philo man facing 7 felony sex charges alleging sex with a underage girl appears in Fort Bragg courthouse Monday. Case was filed March 27.
Eight members of the public—seven women and one man—watched the proceedings from the gallery, including the victim and members of the victim’s family. On the defendant’s side, two women were present. For a single case, it was a notably full courtroom. Dressed in a nearly tailored suit, the defendant responded politely to all questions posed by Ten Mile Court Judge Clay Brennan.
Davis’ attorney, Robert Boyd, negotiated a plea deal with Deputy District Attorney Eloise E. Kelsey, who oversees prosecutions in the Fort Bragg court. In exchange for Davis’ guilty plea, five additional felony charges were dismissed—one for lack of evidence, according to Kelsey’s statement in court. Davis, now 42 years old, admitted to one count involving oral copulation on him by a then-16-year-old girl, and another charge related to attempting to arrange a similar encounter. There was no allegation the encounters were forced. The defense requested that the phrase “lewd and lascivious” be removed from the felony description, and the court agreed. The case alleged the abuse went on for two years.
When we talked earlier, attorney Boyd told us he never comments to the news media about cases, but we shot him an email anyway.
Since Mendocinocoast.news published that first story, the rug was pulled out of our ability to cover the courts. Pushed by a secretive state body, the California Judicial Council, local courts shut the door on random access to filings, cutting off online access to criminal case records for everyone except officers of the court. For local reporters and concerned citizens alike, this marks a dramatic and troubling retreat from transparency—one that makes it extremely difficult and sometimes impossible to follow justice in real time. We were not able to read the latest file in this case. We insist on public access to public records, but fortunately, we had downloaded about 30 case files before the courts ended all online access to criminal court files on Aug. 1. (The calendar is NOT the files btw). We had planned to find and cover all serious felony cases on the Mendocino Coast but that plan was defeated by the courts on Aug. 1, we have made numerous efforts to look but haven’t been able to see them for two months now. And all online access is gone now to criminal court with no plans for that ever to return. They have made the public and the press second class citizens. This did not originate with our county, they had tried to keep files open but were pushed into this on Aug 1. We were told that someone in the local court system didn’t like what we had written and pushed the courts to follow the anti-public access edict from the California Judicial Council, which is famous for detesting any outside criticism of the court system.
Random searching—now impossible, or at best absurdly impractical—once gave objective reporters a vital way to check the justice system. It was a form of oversight the courts used to support. But the digitalization of case files has ushered in a near-total collapse of public access to what were, by law and in principle still are in principle, public records. I fact, you the reader, you the accused, you the juror and me the reporter have no access to the criminal court system.. Random searching is how we found this case and many others we wanted to tell you about. Read below all the cases we told you about back in July when we still could access the files.
Worst of all, the California Judicial Council—which seems to harbor a peculiar hatred for the news media—has gone far beyond the restrictions already created by the end of paper files. Courts are now cynically told by the Judicial Council they only need to provide access if it’s “feasible.” No information available? Computer down for weeks? Tough luck. Transparency, it seems, is now optional.
For all this their cynical, anti-Constitutional word “feasible” for public access is what means war.
More on this later—because when the watchdog gets muzzled, it’s time to bark louder.
Until August 1, Mendocino County was one of just half a dozen counties I found still offering open access to criminal court files. Then—apparently someone didn’t appreciate our coverage of cases that hadn’t been handpicked for us. Since then, public access has become prohibitively expensive, pared down, and scattered across erratic hours, making meaningful coverage nearly impossible and reliant on guesswork. This erosion of access doesn’t just inconvenience reporters—it undermines accountability, silences local journalism, and chips away at the public’s right to know.
We looked into that and wrote another story:
Justice in the shadows: Mendocino court rule threatens public access and constitutional rights
Back in July, Mendocinocoast.news combed through the full slate of available court files and flagged about ten felony cases that had never been publicly reported—this was one of them. But there won’t be more. The courts have slammed the door on objective file searches. They’d prefer to decide what counts as news, and who gets to tell it.
Here’s how that goes: During one of three weeks when Mendocinocoast.news was deep in the trenches, spending hours combing through court files, we received exactly two press releases from the District Attorney—both about traffic crimes. One highlighted a misdemeanor DUI with no injuries, now being retried after a hung jury and mistrial. That was the news they chose to share?? Meanwhile, we uncovered nearly a dozen unreported felony cases—serious charges with real community impact. The contrast couldn’t be clearer: curated PR versus the messy truth they’d rather we not find.
A retrial for a hung jury misdemeanor DUI was the DA’s story of the week? Why not a plea and save the taxpayers some money? During the brief window when Mendocinocoast.news was still allowed to search case files, we saw signs that the courts play hardball on DUI cases—even when blood alcohol levels hover just below the legal limit. To confirm that pattern, we’d have needed continued access. But that door’s been slammed shut.
As a matter of editorial policy, we oppose drinking and driving in any form and support prosecution. HOWEVER, there’s a “pay to play” dynamic here that deserves scrutiny—and now can’t be. Meanwhile, public frustration often lands on the police, when what we saw is it’s the courts and DA quietly pulling the strings.
So Mendocinocoast.news was understandably mystified by the press release touting a misdemeanor DUI retrial—especially when serious felony cases were quietly moving through the system without so much as a press release, an arrest, or even the discomfort of a mug shot. This selective visibility doesn’t just skew coverage—it shapes public perception, creating the illusion of accountability while the real decisions happen offstage.
Most of the unreported felony cases weren’t coastal, so we let them go—our ability to research drops with every mile inland. A few fizzled on closer inspection, the charges sounding louder than the facts beneath them. That’s real reporting: nine out of ten stories don’t pan out. And even when they do, it’s never quite the story you thought you were chasing. But chasing matters—because the surprises, the pivots, and the uncomfortable truths are what keep journalism honest, and communities informed.
Present-day reporting too often means slapping up a press release, stamping the news outlets name on it, and calling it journalism. LOOK HERE! WE ARE HERE TO TELL YOU AS THE MEDIA EVERYTHING IS JUST PERFECT> No digging, no context, no fuss—just letting the authorities speak with the mouth of gods, unquestioned and unchallenged. These shloobs make our job 1000x harder to do. Actually its THEIR job too they just don’t seem to know that.
But real journalism demands discomfort, persistence, and the willingness to chase stories that don’t come gift-wrapped. When we trade scrutiny for convenience, we don’t just lose the story—we lose public trust.
The case against Mr. Davis showed no booking had ever been made, which struck us as unusual—and several readers echoed that observation after we published the story. We didn’t get a chance to speak with the women or the one man who attended the Davis hearing. But afterward, one of them—spotting me, the perennial odd duck in the room—reached out. She’s not the victim, nor direct family, but she had something to say.
Unprompted, she offered a perspective by email: something about this case felt out of balance with the justice she’d come to expect.
“Today I had a front row seat to the failure of the Mendocino County justice system. Our ineffective law enforcement has allowed (Davis) to be charged and released without bail. Ryan Davis entered a plea of guilty to two out of SEVEN felony sex crimes, and moments later strode freely out of the courtroom in a pressed suit to comfortably return home. The Ten Mile courtroom has proved that justice is not blind and if you can afford a lawyer the rules are flexible. Why has this man been allowed these graces in our criminal justice system?”
There is no evidence anything was amiss about the Davis case. It’s common for a defendant under investigation to hire an attorney and avoid being booked. The big question what is the standard for the DA announcing cases from the files we can no longer reasonably access?
During the brief window when Mendocinocoast.news still had workable access to online court files, we managed to publish several other stories drawn directly from what we uncovered. If you think we are stirring up a tempest in a teapot here, READ THE CASES BELOW FIRST. Getting news out in these situations can restore a wrongly broken life or inform you what a great job was done by the system— or not.
In another criminal case, Mendocinocoast.news reported on a man who walked free after killing another man—possibly because the DA aimed only for the maximum charge, leaving no room for a conviction on anything less.
The case also revealed a risky—but ultimately brilliant—move by the defense attorney: putting his client on the stand. Or put another way, he may have simply outmaneuvered the prosecution. Was this a huge error by the DA that will have consequences in the future? We wanted to see if this was part of a pattern.. But then the files were locked down.
And like so much else in the court system, we’re left in the dark. Are cronies being let off? Are innocent people being overcharged? Without access, there are no answers. No files, no stories. And we uncovered all of this in barely three weeks. Imagine what we could have done with three months.
Here’s another story we only uncovered because we had access to criminal court files: a man who had all charges against him dismissed. Like any case, there’s far more nuance than what fits in a court file or press release—but the press release had already cast him as guilty. Just days later, every charge was dropped.
There are three states of being in our legal system: guilty, innocent until proven guilty, and innocent. But when the narrative gets handed off to PR, that third category tends to vanish.
Self defense! Case dismissed! Release of Fort Bragg man who stabbed 2, including his mom, ordered
None of my media rivals who printed a press release accusing this man of attempted murder (no fault for the cops here btw, its what it was at the time) followed up or reported the dismissal of this case. What was once a basic expectation of journalistic integrity is now rarely done—unless the DA spoon-feeds it to the press. Meanwhile, this person remains forever tethered to the crime online, despite the charges being dropped. I even challenged the woman behind the area’s biggest crime site to publish the dismissal. She refused to follow up, let alone print the story.
Admittedly, this case—and most of the others—reflects a deeper failure of the press release media culture we’re stuck with in 2025. Law enforcement writes a press release presenting their version of events. That’s their job, and they do it well. But that’s where it ends. The release gets printed, word for word, with no follow-up by the rubber stamp “reporters”, no scrutiny—unless the DA decides to issue one of their rare press releases. The result? A public fed a single, unchallenged narrative, while independent journalism is left chasing shadows with the lights turned off.
From the 1980s through 2017, newspaperman Frank Hartzell witnessed firsthand how local newspapers were often the only check on county District Attorneys—who wield power unmatched by anyone else in the political system. We didn’t just report; we dug into cases, sometimes shifting outcomes. And when injustice flows from the DA’s office, it’s rarely challenged from within. Judges stay silent. Defense attorneys tread carefully. It’s usually the media, a lone politician, or a fired-up defendant—wrongly tried or convicted—who dares to speak up.
Frank had long planned to take a hard look at the workings of this and nearby court systems. But just as we got started, the access vanished—pulled before the first real questions could be asked.
It’s a shame. The media has done real good in California court history. Despite the open disdain for all of us from the California Judicial Council, there are thousands of examples where access to court files—by people outside the DA or defense—helped catch dangerous offenders and free the wrongly accused. Even at our worst, the press could still shine a light on which cases were chosen and ask the hard questions: Was this political? Personal? Or truly in the interest of justice? Just remember the role court files and a police report played in prosecuting the man who assaulted Fort Bragg City. Without access, that story might never have surfaced.
Councilman Dan Gjerde—on the steps of City Hall. The old DA, a crony, wouldn’t prosecute. The new one did. The file was copied, the facts were public, and everyone knew what was going on. Those days are gone. Now, silence shapes the record. Without access, there’s no scrutiny, no context—just a vacuum where accountability used to live.
The coverage exposed a troubling gap in how justice is recorded and remembered. The woman’s alleged attacks were serious, repeated—and yet the case quietly resolved with no follow-up from other outlets. Without access to court files, the public would have no idea how it ended. And without independent reporting, the narrative stays frozen at the accusation. It’s a reminder that justice isn’t just about what happens in court—it’s about who tells the story, and whether anyone bothers to finish it.
The outcome of this case surprised us—and several readers who reached out asking for more. So we dug. We reviewed other files, talked to people, and learned that at some point, the victim chose not to cooperate. We also investigated broader concerns: allegations that police and the DA weren’t taking crimes against women seriously—stalking, peeping tom incidents, even assault. We spoke with many women and legal professionals and got solid information. And in the end, we reached a different conclusion than where we started: the legal system, for the most part, is diligent. The apathy people described often stemmed not from neglect, but from the laws themselves—confusing, narrow, or simply inapplicable. One encounter, for instance, doesn’t meet the threshold for a stalking arrest.
The bottom line: you won’t hear about any of this reporting again. Not the case. Not the follow-up. Not the facts. And yet we need objective journalism—for public safety, for comprehension—regardless of the California Judicial Council’s ferocious disdain for public access to public records.
For example, on Monday, Sept. 29, Sonoma County issued a press release about a school counselor arrested in Petaluma on sex charges. We were told he also had ties to a Mendocino County organization and began preparing a report—until we remembered: that’s not possible anymore. The police investigative file has never been a public record. But unless we have lots of time and money and willing to return again and again to buy paper copies, following this case, like all others, will be grossly impractical and for no reason whatsoever.
That kind of local connection used to spark deeper reporting—linking jurisdictions, surfacing patterns, asking hard questions. Now, those threads are cut. The public gets the headline, but not the context. And the story stops where the press release ends.
So what exactly happened after Mendocino County Courts pulled all online criminal court files on the last day of July? Silence. The stories stopped. The scrutiny stopped. The public lost its only window into how justice was being served—or denied.
On day one, the announcement came: court files had been moved to a “special room” with a “special computer”—which didn’t yet exist. Online access was gone with no plans that it would ever be restored for criminal case files. The Fort Bragg terminal wasn’t even turned on until nearly a week later. Anyone using it must pay just to view a file, then pay again at the counter for copies. From what we understand, a user can’t even read past the first page without paying—and then paying again to take it with you.
Six weeks in, I still haven’t been able to use the computer. It wasn’t there the first week. Then I stopped by and learned it’s only available when the clerks are present. The next time, the judge was on vacation—no files for a week. And yesterday, the “public access room” was being used as a private conference space by a court officer and participants from a just-concluded hearing.
This setup doesn’t just inconvenience—it undermines the very idea of public access. It’s a system designed to appear open while functionally denying transparency. The public is told the files are available, but in practice, they’re locked behind timing, fees, and a door that’s often closed.
And is in the new, largely unavailable “public” computer? Two possibilities—both a travesty of justice.
There are only two possibilities for what can be in that usually locked or out of order “public access computer”
- It’s the same files we saw before—still packed with victims’ names, home addresses, Social Security numbers, and other details I’d never seen in court records until recently. We flagged this to people in the court system, which, in hindsight, was a mistake. But if that sensitive information is still in the files, why is it acceptable to show it in a back room—but not on a secure home computer? This seems to be what we have. The courts setting up a special room for us to use for one reason- to make using the files as difficult as possible.
In the old days, none of that personal info like home addresses was in the paper files. Sensitive material was sealed in envelopes the public and press couldn’t open. Doing so was a misdemeanor—and people got busted for it. We never opened one. If we came across something inappropriate, WE handed it to the clerks so they could seal it properly. That was the system. It wasn’t perfect, but it respected both privacy and access. What we have now does neither.
2. This second class citizen computer is actually some sort of new, censored file containing what? Censored by whom? Its not a file anyone in the court system would use. It violates the sensible old tradition of not having some fake file containing only partial information. They need to give us the real file, with real, sensible rules that explain information like home addresses has been redacted— but not the facts of the case, which is what we never get now.
Possibilities both 1 and 2 are equally bad. Even without this condemnation, the whole unavailable computer is one of the biggest insults to my profession I have ever experienced, combined with the California Judicial Council’s rule that those of us in the public can only get public access if it is “feasible” for the local courts.
The rest of the media? Robotic. Compliant. They dutifully printed the DUI retrial blurb and moved on. For twenty years, I got court cases the old-fashioned way: show up, read everything, flag the ones that mattered—either because they were big or because they pointed to something bigger. We’d paperclip the pages we needed copied. Then we had a story.
Back then, the DA or public defender would talk to you—even about cases they hadn’t announced. That’s over. Today, the Mendocino County DA reveals nothing beyond what’s said in court, by stated policy. Paper files were abolished a few years ago, replaced by digital access. But when the Tyler system came online during the pandemic, I was locked out for 11 months. Sometimes I could read the files, but I couldn’t download or buy them. I worked with the county contractor and Tyler to fix it. It couldn’t be resolved. I didn’t make a fuss—because the pandemic was on.
Where does my fury come from? A big part of it was contacting the California Judicial Council. They refused to answer questions or grant interviews—but they did send over the brief internal discussions that led to this law. The rationale? Court files contained victims’ home addresses and other sensitive details, so public access had to be made as expensive and difficult as possible. It’s the biggest crock of manure I’ve ever read. We have computers now. And this is the best they can do??? They are completely unable to do something as simple as the sealed envelope system of the past? How about a secure link with a password? How about anything that respects both privacy and public access instead of using it as an excuse to lock out the press and public?
My investigation led to a conclusion far more disturbing than simple corruption—though that’s certainly one consequence. The deeper issue is that computerization and digitization have dismantled the strict order that once gave the courts credibility.
In the old days, every paper file had three copies: one for the defense, one for the prosecution, and one for the public. The judge had to check out the public file!!! for trial—it was a hard rule that no separate “court copy” could exist. Reporters had to plan ahead to access the file before the judge did, or we’d miss the first story. The judge always returned it just before trial. That system had structure, accountability, and a rhythm that respected public access.
Now, digitization has erased that order. Everything is filed fast and dumped into one digital vault—accessible only to court participants, which is how it should be according to the California Judicial Council, likely all staring at their phones when making this ruling. The public file, once a pillar of transparency, has been quietly retired to a room locked up or unavailable most of the time. The ability to look, to read and to peruse now would cost thousands of dollars to do.
There’s no longer any chance to peruse cases and spot what might be news. News is whatever the press release says it is. It’s authoritarian justice—take it, like it, and show up for jury duty to endorse it.
I wrote this in the hope that something might shift. That someone might carve out a way for the press to get back in. We would support the courts having very strict policies on what can be published from a file. Make it a misdemeanor for a member of the press or public to promlugate home addresses. While hard to enforce, it would be easy for someone to sue us over printing personal info. We never have and never intend to. The courts already threaten misdemeanors for showing up in shorts, having your midriff bare, or for letting your phone buzz during a hearing. There is a sign right inside the courthouse saying so.
We had hoped to show how good things could be in a county that, overall, treats people in the courts better than some I’ve worked in before. And there were fine people there. But good intentions don’t survive in a system that treats transparency like a threat.
I’d take a LexisNexis login or any real access and keep going—even if it puts me at risk. In the before times, someone always stepped up. Someone saw the breach and tried to fix it. Not so now. Maybe I’m just old and cantankerous, not young and idealistic anymore. Maybe it’s me. But this—this erosion of rights dressed up as modernization—has to change.
Even with all the chaos in the world, we cannot afford to let our rights slip quietly away. Not here. Not now. Not while anyone still remembers how it used to work—and still believes it can again.
Mendocinocoast.news refuses to forget. We refuse to look away. And we invite anyone who still believes in public access, civic truth, and the watchdog role of journalism to stand with us. Because silence isn’t neutrality—it’s surrender.
And we’re not done fighting. We will try to cover important criminal matters but don’t have thousands of dollars to pay for legitimate persuing which is how we found this and other cases. You wont be reading about anything beyond what the DA chooses as crime. Because even if we hear about it, we can’t get reasonable or affordable access to the files now and we refuse to simply take the word of an unspeaking DA (about any active cases) and press releases.
In reading the California Judicial Council’s anti-public access discussions, there was never any discussion of how the weakest and most isolated communities are the ones preyed on in a system where outside criticism is blocked. Nor did the California Judicial Council think for a single second about disgraceful invasions of privacy committed by the courts in the Internet age. Primary among these is the ubiquitous use of mug shuts- those DA press releases about traffic offenses come with mug shots, for example.
The California Judicial Council never weighed in on mug shots during the time they were supposedly worrying about privacy and locking the public and press out so somebody’s home addressess- which should never have been in the file in the first place- would not be printed. Since the Internet, the justice system has wrecked more lives with mug shots following people around forever for some minor offense than any other privacy invasion. But the California Judicial Council never tried to slow this down. A federal court stopped it in a civil case, thankfully. We don’t believe in mug shots for traffic offenders being sent to prison as we recently got. Its illegal for the jail to release those, but the DA can if it deems a traffic case is the most important thing ever, which they did.
In an age of right wing fervor hiding the most corrupt president in history , the The California Judicial Council spouts left-wing jibberish to hide the fact they simply don’t want you to know. The California Judicial Council is clearly not even slightly interested in protecting vulnerable communities or in “restorative justice” . They are only interested in preventing the public from finding out when innocent people are on trail or about corrupt officers of the court. I have seen how extraordinarily tilted the court system used to be against women and people of color. I saw it get better. Now its going back into the dark and I can promise you, the politically connected, the billionaires and the white men (Like me) will be the favored and the darkness the Judicial Council has created will hurt the most vulnerable almost entirely.
That’s your reality of 2025, fast computers and the loss of pretty much everything we all believed in for low prices and fast and convenient everything for some.
Raise your voice or lose it! We have done all we can. From what we understand the California Judicial Council is composed of a bunch of wanna bee attorneys and wanna bee real judges. They finally got the chance to execute the news media and took it. They made not the slightest compromise in favor of public access, making it impossible most of the time. We spent 11 months without any access to court files in 2021 and we went along to get along. The Judicial Council had this word “feasible” that covered the secrecy and made it OK. I really thought they would fix it when the pandemic was over so I kept quiet. If the California Judicial Council had done what it really wanted to do and simply make it illegal for anybody but the prosecution, defense and judge to glimpse any court file, they would have lost a legal challenge. This way, any legal challenge to a bunch of bosses of judges would be like petitioning for an ice cream parlor in hell. This kind of blatant illegality and corruption will come back to haunt all of us, including them.
