PORT ANGELES — George L. Wood, a Clallam County Superior Court judge since 1993, will retire May 31.
He will leave midway through his 23rd year on the bench. Wood, first elected in November 1992, was re-elected without an opponent five times.
Wood’s current term would end in January 2017. His retirement will give Gov. Jay Inslee the opportunity to appoint a successor who will serve at least until the 2016 general election.
Third since 2012
Wood’s retirement brings to three the number of Superior Court jurists to retire in Clallam County since 2012, when Judge Ken Williams left the bench and was replaced by Judge Erik Rohrer.
Judge Brooke Taylor retired three years before the scheduled 2016 end of his second term and was replaced by Judge Christopher Melly in January 2014.
Wood, 65, said he had considered quitting earlier but delayed leaving because of Williams’ and Taylor’s retirements.
“I thought it was important to maintain the consistent presence of an experienced jurist on the bench for a while,” he told the Peninsula Daily News.
Wood’s career included presiding over the 2006 rape-murder trial and 2009 retrial of Robert Covarrubias for the 2004 Christmas Eve death of teenager Melissa Leigh Carter, whose body was found along Port Angeles’ Waterfront Trail.
Wood also presided over the first-degree aggravated murder trial of Thomas Martin Roberts in 2002. Roberts was convicted of killing Clallam County Sheriff’s Deputy Wally Davis on the porch of Roberts’ home in 2000.
In addition, Woods tried Dr. Bruce Rowan in November 1998 in the bludgeoning death of his wife earlier that year. Rowan was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
“The major murder trials stand out,” Wood said during a pause in a trial Thursday.
“Those are the three major ones that were pretty dramatic in nature.”
Other than such dramatic proceedings, Wood said he would remember “just getting to know people in the courtroom and to play a very important part of their lives.
“I took it very seriously and found it very rewarding to have the privilege to do that, although it was certainly a burden as well.”
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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com
