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Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen\u2019s annual State of the Office address became a public warning about looming funding cuts to his department. Courtesy Brandon Pho\/San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight.<\/p>\nSanta Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen\u2019s annual State of the Office address became a public warning about looming funding cuts to his department. Courtesy Brandon Pho\/San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight.<\/p>\n
A routine address from Santa Clara County\u2019s top prosecutor became a dark vision of potential injustice across Silicon Valley\u2019s criminal landscape.<\/p>\n
District Attorney Jeff Rosen \u2014 during his annual State of the Office speech on Tuesday \u2014 warned of threats to public safety as a\u00a0$470 million county budget deficit<\/a>\u00a0will require his office to make \u201cunprecedented\u201d layoffs and department funding cuts. Rosen indicated services such as gun buybacks, collaborative mental health and drug courts and domestic violence services could be on the chopping block or severely affected.<\/p>\n Rosen has historically clashed with the Board of Supervisors for asking him to cut his office\u2019s spending while expanding investments in assets like the county hospital system. At various points during his speech, Rosen posed philosophical questions about the price of a crime survivor\u2019s life while supervisors looked on from the audience.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you had to put a dollar figure on it, how much is a domestic violence victim\u2019s life worth in Santa Clara County?\u201d Rosen said in his speech. \u201cPublic safety costs money. Justice is expensive. Money is finite. There is less money. And so, there will be less justice. Please listen carefully: there will be less safety.\u201d<\/p>\n It remains to be seen how the cuts will shake out. Supervisors are expected to vote on next fiscal year\u2019s budget in June. For the current fiscal year,\u00a0they approved<\/a>\u00a0a $185 million net appropriation for Rosen\u2019s office \u2014 up from $177 million the prior year. That\u2019s despite Rosen\u2019s staffing projections trending downward, from 672 in 2024 to 660 in 2025 to 645 this year, according to county documents.<\/p>\n The District Attorney\u2019s Office has more than twice the funding as the Public Defender\u2019s Office, which provides criminal defense attorneys for Silicon Valley\u2019s poor and indigent residents. Supervisors approved a $90 million net appropriation for the public defender\u2019s office this fiscal year, according to county budget documents. The public defender\u2019s office took another hit of 10 slashed positions after this month\u2019s mid-year budget update.<\/p>\n \u201cI am confident that justice and public safety is a top priority for our board of supervisors, and even as they face difficult budget decisions they will continue to invest to ensure the criminal legal system delivers fair outcomes and works for all communities,\u201d Public Defender Damon Silver told San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight. \u201cIt\u2019s both moral and makes fiscal sense.\u201d<\/p>\n Rosen touted a number of achievements by his prosecutors that he warned might not be possible under a drastically reduced budget. He pointed to one prosecutor on his team assigned to domestic violence cases, Rachel Westcoat, who achieved a guilty verdict despite the victim refusing to testify in court. He said his office\u2019s team that handles sexual assault cases conducted a record 42 jury trials last year, with a more than 90% conviction rate. His office last year also secured what\u2019s believed to be the first conviction of a transgender domestic violence homicide in the county\u2019s history, when a man was sentenced 15 years to life for the\u00a0murder of 24-year-old drag performer Natalia Sm\u00fct Lopez<\/a>\u00a0in 2021.<\/p>\n \u201cHow much was Natalia Lopez\u2019s life worth?\u201d Rosen said, with Lopez\u2019s family watching from the audience.<\/p>\n He added the cuts he\u2019s expected to make will have tangible, negative and even \u201cdire\u201d consequences for the public safety of every county resident.<\/p>\n \u201cWill people get hurt? Will they be killed? Will criminals go free? I don\u2019t know. Hyperbole is not what\u2019s needed,\u201d Rosen said. \u201cWhat\u2019s needed is a clear-headed analysis of what this community wants and what it needs. This is my analysis in one sentence: None of Santa Clara County\u2019s amenities \u2014 parks, pools, schools, roads, sewers and hospitals \u2014 are worth a dollar if the people who live here are not safe from crime.\u201d<\/p>\n Recent years have especially strained Rosen\u2019s relationship with the Board of Supervisors. Last year, county leaders\u00a0successfully asked voters<\/a>\u00a0to approve a five-eighths-cent sales tax increase to protect their public hospital system \u2014 now Northern California\u2019s second largest \u2014 from\u00a0unprecedented federal spending cuts<\/a>. Rosen endorsed the measure\u00a0only after saying he gained assurances<\/a>\u00a0his department would see some of the $330 million revenue. County Executive James Williams later publicly stated his plan to recommend the full allocation of the money to the hospitals \u2014\u00a0prompting Rosen to publicly threaten an investigation<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cAre we better than other county employees? No. Of course not. All public servants have my respect and admiration,\u201d Rosen said. \u201cBut these are objective financial decisions with real world effects. I think we should all be looking at the consequences as we make these decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n District 4 Supervisor Susan Ellenberg said every county department will have to make tough choices this year.<\/p>\n \u201cI hope that the district attorney, like all of our department heads, will find ways to create systems of prioritization that allows him to continue doing most of the vital work of his office,\u201d Ellenberg told San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight. \u201cNone of us this year will be able to do all the things we want to do and truthfully we will all be a little worse off for it.\u201d<\/p>\n