SAN FRANCISCO – The battle over whether the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office is legally “unavailable” to accept new felony cases continued Monday, as Assistant District Attorney Ana Gonzalez argued that structural changes in law and court practice, not District Attorney filing decisions, are driving the city’s mounting backlog of unresolved cases.
The hearing before San Francisco Superior Court Judge Harry Dorfman marked roughly the 10th session in an ongoing evidentiary process examining whether the Public Defender’s Office can ethically take on any more felony appointments. The question has major implications for thousands of pending cases, as well as for the city’s privately contracted conflict counsel panel.
Gonzalez told the court her office stayed out of the unavailability dispute until it believed defendants’ rights and public safety were at stake, saying in earlier proceedings, “My office kept out of this until the defendant’s rights were being violated by the public defenders’s office and public safety was it.” On Monday, she tried to reframe the narrative that has emerged over days of testimony from public defenders and conflict counsel, insisting the DA’s office is not the driving force behind the crisis.
Relying heavily on court “dashboard” data, Gonzalez walked Judge Dorfman through misdemeanor filing numbers and trial statistics dating back to 2016. She argued that misdemeanor filings during District Attorney Brooke Jenkins’ tenure have been at or below pre-pandemic levels, and that pending caseloads continued to rise even in years when the DA’s office filed fewer than 2,300 misdemeanor cases. That pattern, she said, shows that filings alone cannot explain why so many cases remain unresolved.
Gonzalez also highlighted historical trial data, contending that misdemeanor jury trials were more frequent from 2016 through early 2020 than in recent years, undermining claims that the current administration’s approach is forcing more cases to trial. She characterized the Public Defender’s trial strategy as a long-standing policy decision that predates Jenkins, and said that focusing only on recent filing trends distorts the bigger picture of how the system operates.
A major part of Gonzalez’s presentation focused on diversion and sentencing reforms that, she said, have structurally lengthened the lifespan of cases. She noted that since 2021, under Penal Code section 1001.95, misdemeanor diversion has been controlled by the court rather than the District Attorney’s Office, and argued that the lack of uniform, written judicial guidelines for diversion decisions has created a bottleneck.
Gonzalez told the court that many diversion-eligible misdemeanor cases remain on “no time waiver” tracks and are not resolved until just before or at trial, when the defense finally seeks diversion. She argued that this practice pushes pressure onto already limited trial courtrooms and lengthens the time cases remain open, even if they eventually resolve without jail time.
She also pointed to the rapid expansion of felony mental health diversion under Penal Code section 1001.36, especially after recent changes that made many cases presumptively eligible. Gonzalez said the process of obtaining evaluations and litigating eligibility can add months before a case even enters a two-year diversion period. She acknowledged that once a case is in diversion, the day-to-day workload for attorneys is lower, but stressed that those cases still appear in the court’s pending counts, inflating the backlog numbers without necessarily reflecting an equivalent rise in active work.
Throughout the hearing, Dorfman pressed Gonzalez on how her data analysis connects to the narrow legal question he must decide: whether felony-qualified public defenders truly lack capacity to accept new cases without violating ethical and constitutional duties. The judge has repeatedly said he believes all sides are acting in good faith and has urged the DA’s office, the Public Defender’s Office and the courts to consider policy changes, including clearer diversion guidelines, that could encourage earlier case resolutions.
Monday’s testimony came against the backdrop of detailed evidence from earlier hearings about the strain on both the Public Defender’s misdemeanor unit and the conflict counsel panel that picks up overflow and conflict cases.
Misdemeanor co-managing attorney Jacque Wilson previously told the court that his unit’s combined caseload ballooned from 1,612 cases in August 2024 to 2,493 cases by Oct. 15, 2025, a roughly 55 percent jump in just over a year, with each attorney now averaging about 147 cases. “My responsibilities as a manager of our misdemeanor unit expand well beyond 40 hours per week,” Wilson wrote in a declaration, describing 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. days, weekend availability and a heavy mix of supervision, training and direct case work.
Wilson testified that more than 60 percent of his misdemeanor lawyers have less than two years’ experience and require intensive mentoring, and that he and co-manager Andrea Lindsay regularly absorb additional cases when attorneys go on leave or transfer. He stressed that the load includes both misdemeanors and felonies, as well as supervising post-bar fellows and dozens of interns each year. “Given the scope of these responsibilities, I respectfully submit that managing the misdemeanor unit is not a one-person job,” he wrote, adding that he and Lindsay “work extensive hours to ensure that our attorneys, fellows, interns, and clients receive the support and advocacy they deserve.”
Conflict panel head Julie Traun has painted a similarly dire picture for the private attorneys who step in when the Public Defender cannot. She testified that her panel handled 2,186 cases in the 2023–24 fiscal year, a number she expects to surge to about 2,996 in 2024–25, even though felony filings have risen by only about six percent. “We are not settling cases, not clearing them,” she told the court, summing up the situation by saying, “The bottom line is we are not clearing cases.”
Traun said her office has “recruited as fast as possible” but still cannot meet the need, and described newer felony attorneys as “not fully ready, but they’re taking unavailable cases.” She warned that what counts as a “conflict” appears to have loosened and that her panel is now spending much of its time simply finding lawyers to cover overflow, a task she said “has become a full-time part” of the job since May.
Her testimony echoed that of Assistant Chief Attorney Hadi Razzaq of the Public Defender’s Office, who told the court last week that the core issue is not raw filing numbers but the inability to move open cases to resolution. “The problem is not the increase in filings,” he said. “It’s the number of open cases we can’t resolve.”
Deputy Public Defender Sujung Kim framed the unavailability declarations as an ethical necessity rather than a tactic. “It’s a constitutional issue,” she testified. “If we take more cases than we can handle, we violate the rights of the people we represent.”
Traun also criticized the lack of regular “justice partner” meetings since COVID-19 and pointed to rising tension and “vitriol” between the District Attorney and Public Defender’s offices, warning that the hostile atmosphere makes it harder to collaborate on solutions. She blamed broader policy choices, including Mayor Daniel Laurie’s tough-on-crime approach, for ramping up arrests and prosecutions without ensuring the system has capacity to handle the influx.
Dorfman has acknowledged the depth of the crisis, previously telling the courtroom, “I don’t know the answer.” He has repeatedly urged all sides to share data, coordinate with the San Francisco Controller’s ongoing review and consider both local policy changes and potential legislative fixes.
No ruling has yet been issued on whether the Public Defender’s Office will be deemed “unavailable” for new felony appointments, and Monday’s hearing made clear that the court is still wrestling with how to weigh competing data sets, structural legal shifts and the day-to-day realities described by lawyers on all sides.
For now, the Public Defender’s Office, the conflict panel and the courts remain stretched thin, and the question of who ultimately bears responsibility for San Francisco’s growing backlog remains at the heart of a high-stakes legal and political fight.
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