- “These increases have created a situation where attorneys are forced to triage, neglecting some or all of their fundamental duties.” – Hadi Razzaq, SF Public Defender’s Office
SAN FRANCISCO – In Department 19 on Monday, San Francisco Chief Assistant District Attorney Ana Gonzalez sharply criticized the Public Defender’s Office, arguing that its recent declaration of “unavailability” to take new felony cases was unjustified, unlawful, and the result of “a failure of management.”
The Public Defender’s Office, led by Mano Raju, has said the declaration is a last resort to protect defendants’ constitutional right to effective counsel, citing soaring caseloads, staff shortages, and unprecedented discovery burdens.
Raju’s office believes that without immediate relief, attorneys risk violating ethical standards and that the crisis threatens the Sixth Amendment right to counsel for thousands of indigent San Franciscans.
But in court, Ana Gonzalez accused the office of manufacturing a crisis, misrepresenting data, and neglecting its statutory duty to represent indigent defendants.
In an October 20 letter to San Francisco Superior Court Judge Harry Dorfman, Gonzalez wrote that the court “must reject the purported unavailability” of the Public Defender’s Office, citing Government Code section 27706 and the San Francisco City Charter, which she said impose a mandatory duty to represent defendants.
“The public defender is required to defend any person who is not financially able to employ counsel,” Gonzalez wrote, adding that the law “does not grant the public defender any discretion to decline representation.”
She argued that the office’s declaration “does not meet the requirement” for conflict-based unavailability under Penal Code section 987.2 and In re Edward (2009).
In court, Gonzalez reiterated those arguments, telling Judge Dorfman that “the data does not support an emergency claim.” She maintained that filings are “down, not up,” and said the problem is managerial, not structural. “They are choosing how to deploy resources,” she said, “and that’s not an emergency.”
Gonzalez told the court that between 2016 and 2020, the DA’s office filed between 3,500 and 4,200 cases per year, compared with 3,100 to 3,500 in the most recent four years. She acknowledged that 2020 and 2021 were “aberrant” due to COVID-19 and the policies of former DA Chesa Boudin, but insisted that the overall trend shows declining workload for the defense.
Former Public Defender Jeff Adachi managed it better with fewer lawyers and more filings, she claimed, “and did not declare an emergency.”
She also claimed the average felony attorney in the Public Defender’s Office has 54 active clients and that over 1,000 defendants have multiple cases. Gonzalez argued that the office’s reliance on statewide workload standards and national public defense studies is misplaced. “Those are aspirational,” she said, “not binding.”
Gonzalez said the Public Defender’s decision to scale back intake has “ripple effects” that harm the entire system, forcing courts to delay arraignments and leaving defendants in custody without appointed counsel.
“The court cannot function if one side unilaterally refuses to take cases,” she told the judge. “That’s not workload management—that’s an abdication of responsibility.”
Following the hearing, Chief Attorney Matt Gonzalez of the Public Defender’s Office disputed Ana Gonzalez’s claims in an interview with the Vanguard, calling her presentation “misleading” and “incomplete.”
“I never heard her address what I think cannot be reasonably argued, which is that caseloads are up,” he said. He cited the San Francisco Superior Court’s public dashboard, which shows that cases have increased “nearly 45 percent since pre-COVID numbers.”
He added that even if the DA’s office were correct that filing totals have stabilized, “there’s a very dramatic increase in pending cases,” which he called “undisputed.” Gonzalez said misdemeanor filings have risen substantially and that the office had to expand coverage in those courts, which reduced staffing available for felony trials. “When misdemeanors go up, we have to staff those courts accordingly,” he said. “That directly impacts our ability to staff felonies.”
Gonzalez questioned the DA’s involvement in the matter at all. “There’s a strong case to say they really don’t have standing to be involved in this discussion whatsoever,” he said. “We also don’t think the court has a say in our declaration of unavailability. It’s an internal administrative determination to protect clients’ rights.”
In his Oct. 27 declaration filed with the court, Assistant Chief Attorney Hadi Razzaq described the Public Defender’s Office as “operating under a level of strain that makes continued intake unethical and constitutionally impermissible.” The declaration detailed a 47 percent increase in active cases since 2019, rising from 5,039 to 7,421 as of October 2025, while attorney staffing has remained virtually flat.
Razzaq’s filing said misdemeanor filings rose 39 percent since 2019, while felony filings increased 40 percent. The number of pending misdemeanor cases is up 57 percent. Felony attorneys now average 61 active cases each, and misdemeanor attorneys average 147.
“These increases have created a situation where attorneys are forced to triage, neglecting some or all of their fundamental duties,” Razzaq wrote. He cited massive growth in digital discovery, including a 258 percent rise in body-worn camera footage over eight years.
Matt Gonzalez said those realities have been ignored by the DA’s narrative. “The DA’s office acts like this is just about counting cases,” he said. “It’s about the complexity and the volume of evidence. Reviewing terabytes of video, cell phone data, and forensic reports isn’t the same as a single police report from 15 years ago.”
He also dismissed Gonzalez’s criticism of staffing priorities. “Some of the positions they take issue with are a result of grant funding,” he said. “We get a grant to put a certain number of people in the Clean Slate unit, and then they look at it and say, ‘Oh, these people should be supporting the felony unit.’ That’s not how our budget works.”
He added that attorneys are already stretched far beyond capacity. “Nobody has said that any of our staff works less than 40 hours a week,” he said. “We don’t get any overtime. They’re basically telling a group of lawyers and support staff that already work beyond what they get paid for that they should take on further work without compensation.”
Gonzalez emphasized that the crisis threatens defendants’ Sixth Amendment rights. “If your caseload gets too high, it makes the assertion of a speedy trial right illusory,” he said. “Any client that gets an attorney that’s already beyond capacity is going to be told, ‘You’ve got to waive time because I can’t be ready.’”
He concluded by saying Ana Gonzalez’s statements reflected “a lot of the animosity she has for our office” and framed the dispute as political rather than legal. “I’m glad she got to share her thoughts,” he said. “She revealed exactly what this is about—punishing our office for standing up for our clients.”
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