The Alameda County Public Defender's Office has begun telling judges it can't represent certain defendants because it lacks enough money and staff members to give them a constitutionally adequate defense.
Public Defender Diane Bellas had warned of this weeks ago. But the county's Board of Supervisors said the 14 positions expected to be cut from her office Sept. 4 would be restored only if costs to the county rise with the referral of these defendants to the Alameda County Bar Association's court-appointed attorney program.
Bellas said her conservative estimate is that her office will turn away about 250 misdemeanor defendants who aren't in jail at Oakland's Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse each month; about 350 out-of-custody misdemeanor defendants per month at the Hayward Hall of Justice; and about 250 probation violation defendants per month at Oakland's Rene C. Davidson Courthouse - in all, about 10,200 clients per year. Services at the Fremont and Pleasanton courthouses and in the county's juvenile court remain as they are, and she's seeking other funding to maintain her office's mental-health services.
"Our department is a poster child for the failures of state government and the grave consequences of those leadership failures," Bellas said Monday, adding that she doesn't blame county supervisors and the county administrator but "will not stop trying to get these positions restored."
Meanwhile, judges "have been having to deal with their own cutbacks, so I think they have a visceral appreciation for the impact," she said.
More than six dozen Alameda County Superior Court administrative workers have been or will be laid off; the District Attorney's Office is cutting vacant positions; and the Sheriff's Office will lose deputies who guard inmates and provide security in the courts. Counties across California face similar crunches due to state funding cuts: In San Joaquin County, for example, court clerks' hours were cut back effective Monday, court workers are being furloughed one day per month, and courts will be closed the third Wednesday of each month.
The American Bar Association issued a formal opinion in 2006 saying court-appointed lawyers such as public defenders whose caseloads become so heavy as to prevent them from providing competent representation have a duty to ask courts to stop assigning them cases. Yet other efforts to balance excessive workloads with ethical representation have been slapped down. The Kentucky Public Advocate's Office's lawsuit was dismissed in May after that state's governor and Legislature convinced their Supreme Court there's enough funding to get the agency through the next few months. Also in May, a Florida appeals court overturned a lower court's order, which had let the Miami-Dade Public Defender's office turn away low-level felonies.
Bellas cautioned against comparing her office's situation to the others; she and most California counties' public defenders are appointed, while Miami-Dade's public defender is elected and Kentucky's is a statewide system. "The systems are highly politicized and as a result so is funding," she said.
Alameda County Deputy Public Defender Kathleen Ryals, a member of her labor union's steering committee, said the office is devastated not only by having to reject cases for the first time in its 82-year history, but also by losing 14 of its best, brightest and most energetic young attorneys. "And it's going to cost the county more money," she said - an estimated $2 million to $3 million in the first year, a poor choice for a county she used to see as fiscally responsible. "We're devastated and we're hoping that somebody who can make a decision will look at the numbers a little more closely and reverse this."
