John Chiv: What is happening with former HSU student and alleged rapist Darius Upshaw?

May 20, 2021

What is happening with former HSU student and alleged rapist Darius Upshaw?

What is happening with former HSU student and alleged rapist Darius Upshaw? Guess we will find out May 25.

Humboldt Superior Court has the most restrictive and special local rules and they have used COVID 19 to further limit access and transparency. Even attorneys have to fight this in bred, corrupt small town, incompetent administration.

There is no use having full day jury trials when the court is not in session until 10 or 10:30 and ends early.

Not all Judges are pulling their weight the same. Some local Judges are working harder than others and they run their courtrooms more efficiently.

And they continue to hold scheduling meetings with no livestream. Scheduling is not confidential. Humboldt Superior Court has instituted several new intervention, informal calendars.

The buck stops with Presiding Judge Joyce Hinrichs, Humboldt Superior Court CEO Kim Bartleson and Court Operations Manager Kelly Nyberg. Except for Ms. Nyberg flitting from courtroom tocourtroom, the other two are MIA.

Livestream and court scheduling seems to be working everywhere else except Humboldt with transparency and without daily technical issues. What do these three get paid thousands of dollars to do? To create more chaos and mismanagement which existed before COVID 19. They must be following the example of the overpaid, useless California Judicial Council. You think by now, the California Judicial Council would have done a site visit to check why Humboldt keeps needing emergency orders to extend jury trials?

Court hearings are being scheduled willy nilly and last minute. They don't always make it to the online calendar. I just happened to be watching another case in another courtroom today and heard Upshaw mentioned. His attorney, Mr. Russ Clanton who was in the middle of another client's case was informed by Judge Kaleb Cockrum and looked surprised.

Upshaw was scheduled for a court trial on May 25 but heard something about the case being called in another courtroom at 9:30. Checked every courtroom, no Upshaw. It was assigned to Judge Kelly Neel. Courtroom 4 had no livestream. I tried to check but there was no information on the case and what was happening.With no acccess to the second floor or e court, this creates issues in covering cases and courts. It is not on the trial assignment calendar so I have no idea if there was a change of plea or dates were reset.

Why are Judges playing messenger? Wouldn't be necessary if the hearing could be scheduled and listed and there was advance notice.

Here is just one California Judicial Council scandal.