Maybe you don’t have the right to have a lawyer when arrested in San Francisco these days, as the backlogged SF Public Defender’s Office says they can no longer take cases as Mayor Lurie slashes their budget while jacking up the arrest count.
As Mayor Daniel Lurie’s budget cuts wreak havoc on every city department in town (except the cops!) District Attorney Brooke Jenkins has been on a warpath against the 15% cuts proposed to her department, even asking for a nearly 10% boost for her office’s budget. She is probably unlikely to get that boost. But her office’s counterpart, the SF Public Defender’s Office, is also massively hamstrung by budget cuts and an increased caseload, what with all the fentanyl arrests from the latest crackdown.
The toll on the Public Defender’s office is so burdensome that the SF Standard is reporting today that the Public Defender has had to stop taking new cases…