{"id":99162,"date":"2025-12-18T03:14:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T03:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/99162\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T03:14:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T03:14:11","slug":"damon-silver-appointed-santa-clara-countys-chief-public-defender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/99162\/","title":{"rendered":"Damon Silver appointed Santa Clara County’s chief public defender"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN JOSE \u2014 Damon Silver, a veteran South Bay attorney who has headed the Santa Clara County Public Defender\u2019s Office for the past year<\/a> on an interim basis, was appointed this week as the permanent chief public defender by the Board of Supervisors.<\/p>\n

\"DamonDamon Silver was appointed this week as the permanent chief public defender by the Board of Supervisors. (Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Starting Monday, Silver will officially lead the agency where he has spent the past three decades. He has served as a line-level attorney, chief trial deputy and later as a top executive under his predecessor Molly O\u2019Neal, who was the county\u2019s longest-serving public defender before retiring a year ago and endorsed Silver to succeed her.<\/p>\n

Silver, a 55-year-old North County resident, said he was appreciative of the support from county leadership, adding that his appointment preserves vital continuity in the office that will help them maximize their mission to help vulnerable and indigent people disproportionately ensnared in the criminal court system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe office has a long tradition of being very client-centered and focusing all decisions through the lens of what\u2019s best for the community and the specific clients we serve,\u201d Silver said in an interview. \u201cWe spent generations building that office culture \u2026 and I am now the next recipient of that baton from Molly and her many years of leadership, to continue to advance those goals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Board of Supervisors President Otto Lee said of Silver\u2019s selection: \u201cWe are proud to see a leader with such deep institutional knowledge and community partnership rise to lead the public defender\u2019s office.\u201d<\/p>\n

County Executive James Williams, who previously served as County Counsel, said Silver \u201cwill continue to uphold the dignity and rights of the clients it serves, while fostering trust and partnership with our diverse communities in Santa Clara County and leading transformation across our criminal justice system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Silver, who attended UC Davis for both his undergraduate and law degrees, has been in Santa Clara County since 1998. In describing his legal philosophy for his office, he recalled the late-1800s law icon Clara Foltz, the first woman to practice law on the West Coast and who pioneered the concept of publicly funded criminal defense.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe legal system should not just be a sword, it should be a shield. And so in many ways I see us as playing that role of the shield in a balanced system,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are uplifting the voices of the community, and most importantly, the community that\u2019s impacted by the criminal-legal system.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean not just serving clients on their individual criminal cases, but really looking at the reasons they are entangled in the system in the first place \u2026 so that we\u2019re not only just representing them in their criminal case, but really thinking about how we help support them so that they don\u2019t return to the system in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

District Attorney Jeff Rosen, Silver\u2019s chief counterpart, congratulated him on his selection.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn an adversarial system like we have in court, our two offices fight hard against each other, as the system is designed to have us do. I know though, that outside of the court, we can and should work together to make the criminal justice system the best and the fairest it can be for all,\u201d Rosen said in a statement. \u201cI look forward to collaborating with Damon where we can collaborate. I also look forward to having disagreements that never lose sight of the respect we have for each other and for the justice system.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neal said the office\u2019s legacy is safe in her former No. 2\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n

\u201cDamon will be, and honestly already is, an excellent chief public defender,\u201d she said. \u201cHe has an unparalleled work ethic, strong ties to the community and is a brilliant, strategic thinker. He understands the needs of the clients and works tirelessly to ensure their rights are protected and their voices heard.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE \u2014 Damon Silver, a veteran South Bay attorney who has headed the Santa Clara County Public…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[21117,1312,54077,17262,88,90,89,198,2086],"class_list":["post-99162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-appointment","tag-courts","tag-damon-silver","tag-public-defender","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-santa-clara-county","tag-supervisors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}