Private defense attorneys say they have become a de facto satellite office of the public defender — and are themselves at capacity.
Now, private defense attorneys say they have become a de facto satellite office of the public defender — and are themselves at capacity. “Every day we scramble to see who can come in and cover,” said Julie Truan, director of court programs for the Bar Association of San Francisco, on Wednesday.
Truan addressed the issue at a hearing before Judge Harry Dorfman’s courtroom at the Hall of Justice.The judge has invited representatives from the Bar Association, public defender’s office, district attorney’s office, and sheriff’s department to discuss solutions to the workload crisis. He has yet to decide whether he can order the bar to recruit more lawyers, or demand the public defender do so. Their caseloads are now mounting. Private defense attorneys took on nearly half of all felony cases in October on top of their regular conflict cases, Truan said. While the bar was working with the public defender’s office, the “goalpost” of how many cases private attorneys would have to cover “kept moving.” San Francisco routinely contracts private attorneys to take on cases when public defenders have a conflict of interest with another client. But recently, as one such attorney put it, the Bar Association has been acting “like a second public defender’s office” and backfilling the city’s obligations to offer free criminal defense to those accused of crimes.Between May and October, the bar received the names of between 10 and 20 people charged with a felony that the public defender’s office declined to represent, Traun said. To meet the extra demand, 20 defense attorneys from other jurisdictions were recruited to help the 50-some attorneys with the bar. added to the Bar’s workload, Traun said. She was then told that public defenders could not represent some people arrested for misdemeanors, she added. That opened the floodgates. At the end of just one week, the bar received the names of 48 defendants the public defender could not represent, Traun said. The process became “completely unsustainable,” she said. , which will likely be available in December, will analyze costs and review the number of cases the public defender is referring out. At today’s hearing, Assistant District Attorney Ana Gonzalez described the public defender’s unavailability as an “abdication of their constitutional duty to indigent clients,” and said her office was able to handle its caseload. Traun said it wasn’t her place to say. Her main concern, she said, was that her defense attorneys were often faced with people in custody who did not have anyone to represent them, and they could no longer keep stepping in.We are humbled. We still have a bit to go: Donate below if you want to keep Mission Local in the courts, reporting on ICE's actions in San Francisco.abigail@missionlocal.com Abigail covers criminal justice and behavioral health. Originally from New York City, she now lives in San Francisco with her cat, Sally Carrera. Please keep your comments short and civil. Do not leave multiple comments under multiple names on one article. We will zap comments that fail to adhere to these short and easy-to-follow rules.Sign up for Mission Local's daily newsletter: The latest San Francisco news in your inbox, no more than once a day, for free.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Going Private: Q3 Sees Most Take-Private Deals in 3 YearsMarket Analysis by covering: Walt Disney Company, Janus Henderson Group PLC. Read 's Market Analysis on Investing.com
Read more »
Private security officers in Philadelphia preparing to authorize strike32BJ SEIU represents over 3,000 security officers in Philadelphia.
Read more »
Private donors gave more than $125M to keep aid programs going after US cutsWhen the Trump administration froze foreign assistance overnight, urgent efforts began to figure out how to continue critical aid programs that could be funded by private donors.
Read more »
UAE’s Ultra-Rich Are Driving a Fierce Crypto Revolution in Private BankingSwiss software firm Avaloq, which serves numerous private banks and wealth managers, surveyed trends in high net worth (HNW) investing in the UAE.
Read more »
Former Waukegan police officer sentenced to 60 days in jail, 2 years of probation in misconduct caseDante Salinas facing second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter charges in second case
Read more »
S.F. criminal court dodges clerk strike, but caseload crisis persistsCriminal court clerks called off their strike the evening before a picket line was set to form outside San Francisco’s Hall of Justice.
Read more »