Judge fines San Francisco public defender after finding him in contempt for refusing new cases

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A judge fined San Francisco’s public defender $26,000 for ignoring a January order to stop dismissing cases; Critics say this puts a strain on the city’s justice system.

Public Defender Mano Raju Last May, he began refusing to represent some defendants in new felony and misdemeanor cases, citing an overwhelming caseload due to increased prosecutions and understaffing. He wants money for more lawyers or for the court to dismiss some cases filed by District Attorney Brooke Jenkins.

“Each member of my team can cut their workload in half and still have more than a full-time job,” Raju told the Associated Press.

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Harry Dorfman in January ordered Raju to stop dismissing the cases, but Raju refused and Dorfman found him in contempt this month. On Tuesday, he fined himself $1,000 for each of the first 26 cases he dismissed since that ruling and set another hearing in April to add more fines. Raju said he plans to appeal and continue to dismiss some new cases.

Public defenders and staff from across California packed into the courtroom to support Raju. He told the judge that the heavy workload affected the quality of representation his office could provide, which violated defendants’ human rights and negatively affected his staff.

“When we fail to provide necessary representation, people and their families are hurt, and our staff suffers the remaining trauma,” he said.

The move puts Raju, the only progressive elected public defender in California, at odds with Jenkins, who says his actions corrupt the justice system and could lead to violent defendants being released for lack of legal representation.

“Their goal is to disrupt the system, cause chaos, clog the courthouse,” Jenkins said.

Too few public defenders amid public safety efforts

Courts from Oregon Massachusetts Too few public defenders have been a battle for years, with the Oregon Supreme Court issuing a decision in February that resulted in more than 1,400 cases being dismissed for lack of timely representation. But the public spat between Raju, the district attorney, and the judge is unusually contentious and political.

It comes after years of debate in San Francisco over public safety. Mayor Daniel Lurie was elected in 2024 on the promise of revitalizing the city’s battered image after years of negative national attention and has vowed to clean up the city’s streets. His election follows a 2022 recall by voters over frustration with what they see as prosecutor Chesa Boudin’s lenient approach to street crime. Jenkins replaced him and stepped up investigations; It filed 8,000 felony and misdemeanor cases last year, compared to about 5,600 cases filed in 2021.

Jason McDaniel, a San Francisco State University political science professor who wrote a book about San Francisco politics, said Raju used the cut as leverage during a bitter budget fight and presented no real disagreement on public safety policy. Lurie faces a $400 million budget shortfall.

“If this were truly a policy fight instead of a fight for resources, I think that would be something that voters would be really upset about because the more progressive positions on law enforcement have gotten a lot of pushback from the majority of voters in San Francisco,” McDaniel said.

Increase in low-level crime prosecutions

Violent crime rates in San Francisco are among the lowest in recent years, but drug-related crimes, petty theft and other low-level crimes remain common. Jenkins said prosecution rates have returned to pre-pandemic levels because, unlike his predecessor, he enforced every law.

Raju said the increase in prosecutions for low-level crimes, combined with the increasing volume of digital and video evidence to be examined, has led to an unsustainable workload. He accused Jenkins of “clogging the courts” and said his lawyers were working excessive hours, skipping holidays and suffering serious health problems due to heavy workloads.

Raju pointed to a 2023 national study conducted by the RAND Corporation on public defender workload that found excessive workload violates ethics rules and harms defendants. He said his attorneys averaged 60 felonies and 135 misdemeanors at a time, well above the 40 felonies and 80 misdemeanors recommended by Southern Methodist University’s Deason Center for Criminal Justice Reform in 2025.

Heavy workloads among public defenders often lead defendants to wait longer than necessary to resolve their cases, he said. He said so far no one in San Francisco has been left without legal representation because his office coordinates with private attorneys contracted with the city. The San Francisco Bar Association, which stepped in to represent some of the defendants, told the judge that their lawyers now had sufficient capacity and that they could not accept new clients.

The judge rejected claims that his workload was heavy

Dorfman determined that Raju’s office had enough staff to handle the workload and noted that some supervising public defenders might take on more cases. He also said the Public Defender’s Office should stop assigning two attorneys to some felony cases; Raju said this is sometimes done for educational purposes.

The studies that impose limits on public defense caseloads that Raju cited are worth considering, but “these are not California laws,” Dorfman wrote in his January decision.

He told the court on Tuesday that he had established that Raju acted in good faith before the court, but that did not mean that I would withdraw or stay the court order.

“The court is not a spectator to this incident,” he said. “The law requires the court to appoint a public defender when necessary.”