Self defense! Case dismissed! Release of Fort Bragg man who stabbed 2, including his mom, ordered
Daynes Cox-Pabo has been found innocent.
The Fort Bragg man, who was arrested July 18 on felony charges including attempted murder, appeared by Zoom from the Mendocino County Jail so he could enter a plea.
But there was no need for a plea.
Fort Bragg’s prosecutor, Eloise Kelsey, told the court that investigations by Fort Bragg Police following the arrest had determined that Cox-Pabo had acted in self defense. After reading the investigative report, Kelsey recommended the case be dismissed and the public defender, naturally, did not object.
The first Mendocinocoast.news story on the stabbing case.
Clayton Brennan, the judge for Fort Bragg’s Ten Mile court ordered Daynes released from custody and the case was thrown out by three officers of the court in the interest of justice. I didn’t catch whether the case was dismissed with prejudice (meaning it cannot be refiled) or without prejudice (meaning it can be refiled at a later date if there is no evidence).
Now it’s time for the dozen media outlets that posted this original press release to follow up and also reveal to their readers that new evidence resulted in the dismissal of the case. I bet most of these outlets won’t do any follow up. And that is wrong.
In Mendocino County news reporting, people arrested are assumed to be guilty. Reporting has stopped at the press release, or more cynically, when it became in the least bit difficult to do. We can all do better!
Follow up – It’s a matter of ethics. I’m not claiming perfection. I’ve written stories that needed follow-up up and I never did it. We all need to do better. This is a problem with how, from coast to coast, journalists no longer do their own work.
The problem isn’t just the spin; It’s how this approach floods the public with a single, one-sided narrative. Here in Mendocino County, audiences often encounter the same press release a dozen times, each iteration parroting the official script.
What chance does the truth have if the story’s already been told, but never really investigated?
This is not to criticize those creating press releases. They are doing their job by announcing the facts as they know them. Its journalists who are failing so miserably to get all sides of a story. Or even one other side. Press release publication requires zero effort and fattens up news sites to create the impression they are doing journalism. This makes us think the worst of people. It divides us.. Actually go to court and you will see human beings working with a system that is both grossly misunderstood and also gets most very difficult things right.
Monday’ s six hours of court roller coaster started with an effort by law enforcement, Redwood Community Services and both defense and prosecution to get a mentally ill woman to meet the terms of her probation so she could stay out of jail. The woman wasn’t doing much to help her own cause. The judge and prosecution insisted that there be consequences if she failed to attend another probation session. The group made a plan that involved others taking extra steps to make sure she took her meds and attended regular meetings with her probation officer. But when Judge Brennan explained what would happen if she didn’t follow through with people going the extra mile to check on her, the woman balked. She had to come back to face the judge an hour later and was finally able to articulate agreement. This was a person a lot of people would love to hate. She would be very unlikely to thank anyone anytime in the near future. But putting her in jail would surely have accomplished only the worst outcome for her. She will be given 60 days to work closely with Redwood Community Services to stay on her meds and get to her probation appointments. Will the plan work? Hard to say, but all sides made an impressive collective effort to help this woman. The judge put off sentencing on violations of probation charges until Oct. 1 to give it one more chance.
I had my first reporting job in 1983 and like all reporters of that day saw justice served many times and watched it fail at times too. We saw wise and foolish of all these; judges, reporters, cops, prosecutors and public defenders. We were all familiar with the awful spectacle of an innocent person caught in the machinery of the system.
Modern audiences are simply not familiar with how things actually work in courts, government and society. Everything is quick and simple. People who are arrested are someone to be hated on, even if they are our friends and neighbors and even if they turn out to be innocent later. (which we aren’t told). Law enforcement is either to be lavishly praised or to be criticized when the script becomes complicated, or simply human.
When a crime takes place, cops have to gather the best facts they can. But it witnesses don’t cooperate or the investigation takes an unexpected turn, then people who think real life is no weirder than TV shows lose their simple narrative. Reporting also involves difficult choices? When do I use names? Photos? I don’t plan to report names in DUIs and drug possession cases and try to do so in the case of felonies that I believe society takes seriously.
The second to last case of the day involved a man facing felony drug trafficking charges who had relapsed into drug abuse found in urine tests and missing probation reports.He was having trouble following through and faced being sent to jail until trial. He was given another chance to get clean. With it so difficult to follow through, a member of the Fort Bragg Police Care Response Unit got him into a Ukiah rehab program and would be driving him there herself the following morning. Judge Brennan said the court would hold up on any effort and give him a chance to succeed at rehab. Brennan called for a progress report to be made from within the treatment center in two weeks. Then the judge noted that the man had not kept his last probation appointment. Brennan said that no diversion away from sentencing could happen until the man had first made that meeting. It was arranged with probation and CRU to leave a little earlier and have that appointment at the Ukiah probation office before going to check in at the rehab facility.
And folks, if you printed the press release accusing the guy of attempted murder, you have to print that the case was dismissed. Just do it.
