Public defenders in San Francisco have come up with a new way to help criminals stay out of jail. Since last summer they have been refusing to take on new cases, forcing some people charged with crimes to be released because they have no defense attorney available to them.
Public Defender Mano Raju said his office is scaling back by not taking on new cases one or two days each week.
"It's already taken effect. We started this week," said Raju. "We cannot allow the representation of our clients to suffer, and if we take on more cases, that is going to happen."
Raju said his attorneys are overloaded with cases. This comes amidst budget cuts and an increase in cases against drug dealers. Raju said he's been sounding the alarm for quite some time but case loads continue to climb.
As anticipated, by October the San Francisco Superior Court was announcing it would need to release defendants from pre-trial custody because the public defenders said they were unavailable to represent them. This outcome angered DA Brooke Jenkins:
District Attorney Brooke Jenkins lashed out at the county’s judges for being “complicit” in what she called the public defender’s office’s “dereliction of duty.”
“What is new is that the court has become complicit in this by now stating that they are going to release potentially dangerous and violent felons back into the community because of what’s happening,” Jenkins told KQED.
“The court has the power to appoint the public defender, whether or not they are saying they don’t have the capacity.”...
Jenkins said she believes the move is a tactic designed to extract more money for the office from city leaders, one that threatens to disrupt her office’s efforts to prosecute.
Court officials got together last November to discuss the crisis created by the decision of the public defender's office.
Faced with the prospect of letting some defendants out of custody before trial because of the unavailability of attorneys — brought about by the public defender’s office’s apparent inability to take on new clients in some cases — court officials called a rare hearing in an effort to stabilize what they called an untenable situation at the Hall of Justice.
“This issue is front and center,” Superior Court Judge Harry Dorfman said Wednesday in court.
The public defender’s office was especially scrutinized during the multiday hearing, after officials there signaled they were overburdened with existing cases and refused to take on new ones in some instances. Leaders from the office said deputy public defenders, faced with excessive caseloads amid a staffing shortage, must turn down some new cases to uphold their ethical duty to provide competent representation. But top prosecutors urged Dorfman to reject their counterparts’ stance, accusing them of manufacturing the problem. They said deputy public defenders were obligated under the law to represent all indigent defendants.
There was a hearing about this is January and Judge Dorfman found that there were in fact enough attorneys available to take over new cases. He ordered the public defenders to do their job.
After a multi-day hearing in which representatives from Raju’s office explained their workloads, Dorfman in late January ordered the office to no longer turn down cases, ruling that the Public Defender’s Office was adequately equipped.
Despite that, the public defenders continue to refuse to take on new clients. And that has led Judge Dorfman to warn that the next time they refused in his court room, he would consider holding them in contempt.
When Roland Harper rolled his wheelchair before Judge Harry Dorfman on Monday at the Hall of Justice, a routine question followed: Would the public defender’s office represent the indigent defendant?
Chief Deputy Public Defender Matt Gonzalez said no.
“Your honor, we are not going to accept an appointment in this matter,” Gonzalez said, citing crushing caseloads.
Dorfman replied: “You have willfully refused to follow the order.”...
Dorfman, who said he has determined that the office has “available attorneys,” ordered both men to appear before him next week. The office is expected to file a request for a stay with a higher court.
The order was not unexpected. Dorfman had informed the parties previously that if the public defender failed to take on a new client in his court Monday, he would potentially order them in contempt.
The contempt hearing is coming up next week. No one is expecting the judge to throw the public defenders in jail, but he cold fine them for every case they refuse to take. The public defenders are expected to appeal.
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