Davis Stabbings Retrial Enters Critical Phase: Defense Questions Investigation Integrity

The Carlos Dominguez retrial is heating up in a Woodland courtroom, and the battle lines are becoming sharper. Dominguez stands accused of fatally stabbing two men and injuring a woman in Davis in 2023—a case that already ended once in a mistrial when jurors couldn’t reach consensus on whether he was guilty of first-degree murder. Now prosecutors are coming back harder, pursuing second-degree murder charges instead.

What’s striking about this second time around isn’t just the new charges—it’s the defense strategy. Rather than relieing solely on reasonable doubt about the facts, Dominguez’s legal team is actively dismantling the investigation itself. On Tuesday, they pressed Davis Police Officer Steve Ramos about his 2021 demotion within the Davis Police Department, seizing on that detail to plant seeds about credibility and investigative integrity. It’s a classic move: if you can’t win on the evidence, make the people who gathered it look questionable.

The interrogation footage from May 2023 is central to the prosecution’s case, and the defense knows it. They’re scrutinizing why Officer Ramos asked Dominguez about a knife being“special”to him—a question Ramos explained was designed to uncover whether the defendant kept trophies or mementos from crimes. But that explanation, reasonable as it might sound, becomes ammunition in the defense playbook. Did the officer lead the questioning? Was he planting ideas? These are the tensions jurors are now wrestling with.

Testimony from Dominguez’s ex-girlfriend added another layer. She recalled no specific memory of him owning a knife, though she mentioned his interest in anime and a potential samurai sword purchase. She also testified he’d never expressed any animus toward homeless or transient people—a detail that matters if prosecution witnesses have suggested targeting that population. These fragments won’t decide the case alone, but they chip away at the narrative prosecutors are building.

The retrial continues Wednesday morning at 9:30 a.m. in Woodland, and the livestream is available for those following along. With a hung jury the first time and the stakes considerably raised now, every cross-examination, every challenged interrogation tactic, and every character witness matters. This is what a rematch looks like in a case that refuses to be simple.