San Francisco Public Defender's Office scaling back from flood of caseloads
The San Francisco Public Defender says his office has stopped taking cases once a week because they're overloaded.
San Francisco Public Defender Mano Raju says he's concerned with a rising number of cases and what that means for his clients, and an overworked staff.
"We're constitutionally obligated to provide an ethical and competent defense to anyone who is charged with a crime in San Francisco," said Raju.
Data presented by the San Francisco District Attorney's Office during a recent Board of Supervisors meeting shows San Francisco has the highest caseloads compared to surrounding counties.
There's been a 31% increase in filings over the last 3 years.
"It gets to a certain point where the cases are too many to provide the level of representation that the Constitution demands. It's imperative on us to reduce our caseload," said Raju.
That's why Raju's office has stopped taking any new cases one day a week.
The Public Defender and District Attorney's office both point to an increase in arrests by San Francisco police as the reason behind the overwhelming number of cases.
Jenkins says the uptick in arrests is the result of "more widespread enforcement of quality of life crimes" including public drug use, encampments and retail theft.
"When you give a fentanyl dealer a misdemeanor that's effectively decriminalizing it. When you refuse to prosecute any quality of life crime, we've seen that before, and we know where that got us," said Jenkins at the meeting.
Raju believes there's a better way to improve public safety, through diversion programs, rather than ramping up arrests and prosecutions, especially for 'quality of life' crimes.
"If they get arrested, they're coming back out again, and it's really important that we connect people so they can put themselves in a position where they can move to a better place in life by connecting them with the appropriate services," said Raju.
Both offices say cases are also taking longer to resolve.
Part of the reason is that more cameras across the city and police technology have resulted in more evidence for attorneys to review.
The public defender's move to stop taking new cases one day a week comes as the mayor seeks to cut 15% from all city department budgets.
Both offices are facing budget cuts as Mayor Daniel Lurie tries to close an $820 million budget gap by June.
Jenkins has pushed back on Lurie's bid to cut more than $5.4 million from her office, most recently at the Board of Supervisors meeting.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
News24
12 minutes ago
- News24
Marines to patrol LA streets as some residents say: ‘Our city is not at all on fire'
US Marines will be on the streets of Los Angeles within days to help control protests. Democrats have condemned the Trump administration's action as authoritarian. Some in the city say the scale of the protests is exaggerated. US Marines will join National Guard troops on the streets of Los Angeles within two days, officials said on Wednesday, and would be authorised to detain anyone who interferes with immigration officers on raids or protesters who confront federal agents. US President Donald Trump ordered the deployments over the objections of California Governor Gavin Newsom, sparking a national debate about the use of the military on US soil and animating protests that have spread from Los Angeles to other major cities, including New York, Atlanta and Chicago. Los Angeles on Wednesday endured a sixth day of protests that have been largely peaceful but occasionally punctuated by violence, mostly contained to a few blocks of the city's downtown area. The protests broke out last Friday in response to a series of immigration raids. Trump in turn called in the National Guard on Saturday, then summoned the Marines on Monday. 'If I didn't act quickly on that, Los Angeles would be burning to the ground right now,' said Trump at an event at the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. READ | 'The president wants a big show': Trump sends in Marines as night curfew imposed on Los Angeles State and local leaders dispute that, saying Trump has only escalated tensions with an unnecessary and illegal deployment of federal troops, while Democrats nationally have condemned his action as authoritarian. AFP reported that six days after unrest began - prompting the US president to send soldiers into the streets, over the furious protests of local officials - life in the City of Angels was going on largely as normal. 'Everything is hunky dory right here at Ground Zero,' Lynn Sturgis, a retired teacher who was protesting outside the federal complex that has been at the heart of the demonstrations in Downtown Los Angeles, told AFP. Our city is not at all on fire, it's not burning down, as our terrible leader is trying to tell you. Lynn Sturgis 'Not at all... this is very calm,' protester Ellen Carpenter, a retired federal worker who was demonstrating alongside Sturgis, told AFP. 'I lived in Washington, DC for a long time, so I was part of very large protests there, you know, millions and millions of people. This is a little wimpy by comparison.' 'This whole thing has been manufactured by the current administration,' Sturgis said. According to Reuters, Trump is carrying out a campaign promise to deport immigrants, employing forceful tactics consistent with the norm-breaking political style that got him elected twice. 'President Trump promised to carry out the largest mass deportation campaign in American history and left-wing riots will not deter him in that effort,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt US military said on Wednesday that a battalion of 700 Marines had concluded training specific to the Los Angeles mission, including de-escalation and crowd control. They would join National Guard under the authority of a federal law known as Title 10 within 48 hours, not to conduct civilian policing but to protect federal officers and property, the military said. 'Title 10 forces may temporarily detain an individual in specific circumstances such as to stop an assault, to prevent harm to others, or to prevent interference with federal personnel performing their duties,' the Northern Command said. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement: 'If any rioters attack ICE law enforcement officers, military personnel have the authority to temporarily detain them until law enforcement makes the arrest.'US Army Major General Scott Sherman, who commands the task force of Marines and Guardsmen, told reporters the Marines will not carry live ammunition in their rifles, but they will carry live rounds. Newsom and the state of California have sued Trump and the Defence Department to stop the deployment, maintaining that none of the Title 10 conditions were met to justify military deployment - such as a when the US is under threat from a foreign invasion or rebellion. California is also seeking a temporary restraining order to immediately stop the National Guard and Marines from participating in civilian law enforcement. A hearing on that restraining order is scheduled for Thursday in San Francisco federal court. The Trump administration argued in a court filing ahead of the hearing that the president has the discretion to determine whether a 'rebellion or danger of a rebellion' requires a military downtown LA, shortly before the second night of a curfew over a 2.5km2 area, relative calm was broken. Police said demonstrators at one location threw commercial grade fireworks and rocks at officers. Another group of nearly 1 000 demonstrators were peacefully marching through downtown when police suddenly opened fired with less lethal munitions in front of City Hall. Marlene Lopez, 39, a Los Angeles native, was demonstrating as flash bangs exploded just a few metres away. 'I am out here because of the fact that our human rights are being violated every day. If we give up, it's over. We have to stand our ground here in LA so that the nation will follow us,' Lopez said. Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Other protests have also taken place in Santa Ana, a largely Mexican-American city about 50km to the south, as well as major cities such as Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Seattle, Boston and Washington and San Antonio, Texas. New York police said an unknown number of people had been taken into custody on Wednesday. On Tuesday New York police said they took 86 people into custody, of which 34 were arrested and charged, while the others received a criminal court summons. The protests are set to expand on Saturday, when several activist groups have planned more than 1 800 anti-Trump demonstrations across the country. That day, tanks and other armoured vehicles will rumble down the streets of Washington, DC, in a military parade marking the US Army's 250th anniversary and coinciding with Trump's 79th birthday.
Yahoo
41 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Local legislators introduce bill intended to help people get help faster during severe storms
When debilitating storms moved through Aspinwall on April 29, many felt unprepared, including some state representatives. On Wednesday, three of them introduced legislation that aims to improve communication when natural disasters strike. 'I told my out-of-town people, 'get out,' my employees 'get out as fast as you can,' because it turned out to be a lot worse than we imagined,' Debbie McManus said. McManus has owned and operated an Aspinwall business for 37 years. She and others have seen storms and flooding throughout that time, but nothing quite like this spring. 'We had three major issues with high tension wires on the ground for 10 days and nothing was done,' Aspinwall Mayor Joe Noro said. Mayor Noro says getting information during that time was extremely difficult. 'If you can't get information from Allegheny emergency management, that's a problem,' he said. State Rep. Abigail Salisbury (D-34) agrees, which is why she's joined forces with State Reps. Mandy Steele (D-33) and Valerie Gaydos (R-44) to take action. 'I just want to create a system where it's easier for the state reps to help our constituents and to relay that information directly to PEMA,' Salisbury said. On Wednesday, she introduced a bill which would require PEMA to share weather emergency alerts with state legislative offices, creating a direct channel of communication before, during and after natural disasters strike. 'That would enable us to better prepare to be able to deploy and help people in the community,' she said. Salisbury says the bill already has bipartisan support. There are several steps before this bill goes to the governor. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW
Yahoo
41 minutes ago
- Yahoo
House Republicans draft competing budget as Senate nears deal with Hobbs
Photo by Jerod MacDonald-Evoy | Arizona Mirror Arizona lawmakers are at odds again, but this time it's the Republicans in the House of Representatives and Senate who can't agree on how to forge the state budget. Creating the state budget — deciding how much to allocate to departments, projects and initiatives or whether to fund them at all — is the most important job that legislators do each year, and the only thing they are constitutionally required to complete. Before the group of bills that will become the state budget becomes law, it must be approved by a majority in both the Arizona Senate and House — which are both controlled by Republicans — and garner a signature from Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs. In recent history, budget negotiations in Arizona have occurred behind closed doors among the governor and legislative leaders in the House and Senate. But this year is different, with Hobbs and Republican leaders in the Senate nearing a deal after weeks of negotiations. GOP leaders in the House, who haven't been involved in those talks, have responded by drafting their own budget, which was introduced late Wednesday afternoon. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX 'This is a sound, disciplined budget that delivers safe communities, strong families, and a government that lives within its means,' House Speaker Steve Montenegro said in a Wednesday evening statement. 'We're raising pay for our state law enforcement officers, reducing tuition at public universities, fully funding school choice, fixing critical infrastructure and roads, and protecting taxpayers. Our budget reins in government and puts it back to work for the people it serves.' But the spending package, which is chock-full of proposals that are unlikely to pass muster with Hobbs, will never become law. Instead, it is better viewed as a way for House Republicans to lay down a marker in order to force Hobbs and the Senate to move closer to the House's proposal. Republican political consultant Barrett Marson said House GOP leaders are hoping to demonstrate that the chamber can pass a spending plan in order to get leverage in the negotiations. 'Sometimes there's just gotta be movement to unstick a sticky situation,' he said. 'The House has an equal voice. And unlike previous years when one or both chambers had a go-it-alone ethos, the House isn't looking to be draconian or anything. They want something more responsible.' Marson said a major point of contention between the House and Senate is what to do with the budget surplus. While the Senate and Hobbs have settled on copying the novel process from 2023, in which each lawmaker was given a pot of money from the surplus that was used to fund whatever initiatives they wanted, the House wants to negotiate all of those details and not surrender control of that money to individual legislators. During a House Rules Committee meeting earlier Wednesday afternoon, House Minority Leader Oscar De Los Santos, of Laveen, said he was disappointed in the way the budgeting process was happening this year. 'We should not be moving forward with a House Republican-only budget that is destined to fail,' he said. 'This will not get signed by the governor. I don't even think it's going to pass out of the Senate.' De Los Santos even questioned whether the proposal would get enough votes to pass through the House, where Republicans hold 33 of the chamber's 60 seats. 'What we do know is that this is not a negotiated, bipartisan deal in good faith,' he said. 'House Democrats are at the table negotiating in a bipartisan way with the executive, with our (Senate) counterparts across the courtyard. That is the way to get things done in shared government.' But Republican Rep. Neal Carter, of San Tan Valley, replied that the work of governing should be done transparently, instead of in private — and that it should allow for input from the public. 'As a Republican, I stand for full transparency and not for back-room deals or negotiated budgets with parties that are somehow outside of this public process,' Carter said. The House Republican budget, introduced by House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Livingston, proposes significant changes in how federal money allocated to the state, but not restricted to specific uses, is controlled. The billions in unrestricted federal funds, currently controlled by the governor, would shift to legislative control and could only be spent on essential government services. The House GOP's budget proposal would also place new restrictions and monitoring requirements on entitlement programs, like the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System — the state's Medicaid program — and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly called food stamps. Both programs would be monitored on at least a quarterly basis for participants who don't qualify, to be kicked off. And any participants who win $3,000 or more through gambling or playing the state lottery and don't report those winnings would become ineligible. It would also give the Arizona Department of Economic Security the authority to screen recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families for illegal drug use and would ban anyone who tests positive for drugs not prescribed to them from the cash assistance program for a year. House Republicans also intend to increase the percentage of money spent in K-12 classrooms, as opposed to on administration; to decrease tuition for students attending the state's three public universities; and to ban those universities from using public or private money to give scholarships to students without legal immigration status. Hobbs introduced her budget proposal, which includes a much different list of priorities, back in January. Shortly after that, Livingston and Rep. Matt Gress, R-Phoenix, panned her proposal for leaving out projected cost increases for programs like AHCCCS. Hobbs spokesman Christian Slater told the Arizona Mirror on Wednesday that Livingston and Gress were to blame for the House's lack of collaboration on the budget. 'This is DDD all over again,' Slater said via email, referring to a fight earlier this year over funding for the Department of Developmental Disabilities. 'It's another circus led by the Speaker, David Livingston, and Matt Gress where they have refused to participate with any caucuses, including their Republican counterparts in the Senate, in a meaningful manner and are once again just trying to score some political points even though they know their plan is going absolutely nowhere.' Livingston and Gress, a former budget director for Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, were both key players in the fight over an extra $122 million in emergency funding for DDD that put vital services for the developmentally disabled in jeopardy. 'Rather than being productive, the House Republican leadership continues to show they are in over their head and unserious about governing,' Slater said. The House Appropriations Committee is set to discuss the proposal Thursday morning. The Senate Republicans have not introduced their budget proposal. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
