A judge imposed a $26,000 sanction on Public Defender Mano Raju on Tuesday — $1,000 for each person charged by the City Attorney that Raju’s office has refused to represent in court. The public defender’s office does not have enough attorneys to handle the influx of criminal cases in San Francisco and guarantee effective counsel to everyone, Raju has argued.
The courtroom was packed with over a 100 onlookers. Many were there in support of Raju, including nine chief public defenders from other California counties.
The ruling is the latest in a standoff that has lasted for months. Raju’s office continues to take the vast majority of cases but began turning down cases last May. In January, San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Harry M. Dorfman ordered the public defender’s office to stop turning down cases, but Raju continued and, at a hearing on March 10, Dorfman found him in contempt of court.
“It’s a constitutional fight that needs to happen for equity in our city and in our country,” Raju said today before the hearing.
The fastest solution, he said, would be to fund the public defense office, which would need 36 additional attorneys.
Kory DeClark, Raju’s attorney, argued that this is a systemic problem, and the public defender’s office wasn’t the only one responsible. He said the District Attorney’s office keeps prosecuting more cases, and the Mayor’s Office decides the budget to allocate to the public defender’s office. DeClark asked the judge not to impose a monetary sanction, saying that the charge of contempt was sufficient punishment.
Dorfman said he had read several letters from other chief public defenders arguing Raju is the best person to evaluate if his lawyers have a full caseload and are therefore unavailable to take on more cases. Still, he was not persuaded.
“I concluded that he has available lawyers,” Dorfman told the court.
In May, Chief Attorney Matt Gonzalez with the public defender’s office wrote in a letter to the superior court that the average caseload for felony attorneys in their office is 65 and for misdemeanor attorneys 145, which exceeds those of neighboring public defender offices in the Bay Area. The public defender’s office began declining misdemeanor cases one or two days a week and felony cases one day a week due to the excessive caseloads.
For a while, the San Francisco Bar Association tried to fill in the gap by representing people the public defender’s office declined to represent, but in October the Bar’s private defense attorneys said they also reached capacity.
The crisis left defendants held in jail longer due to a lack of attorneys who could represent them, leading the San Francisco Superior Court to release a statement announcing it would start releasing some people from pre-trial custody if they don’t have legal representation.
Public Defender Mano Raju and other chief public defenders from other counties. Photo courtesy of the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office.
April Frazier Camara, president of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, said the San Francisco public defender’s office has some of the highest caseloads in the Bay Area. Active cases in San Francisco have risen 65 percent since 2019, according to the public defender’s office.
“Being held in contempt is very concerning, not just for San Francisco, but for public defenders around the country because they have to be able to maintain their right to be independent and determine how many cases their office can handle,” she said.
Judge Dorfman gave the public defender’s office until April 10 to pay the sanctions. The office said it’s going to appeal the judge’s decision with a higher court.
“It’s disappointing that the court had a pre typed out and printed decision,” Raju told Mission Local.
Although several people told the judge that their workloads far exceed ethical limitations, the judge didn’t engage with their testimonies, Raju said. “He just looked at the situation from his perspective.”