SAN FRANCISCO — The hearing over the San Francisco Public Defender’s declaration of unavailability proceeded this week before Judge Dorfman, as Assistant Chief Attorney Hadi Razzaq and Deputy Public Defender Sujung Kim offered detailed testimony on the strain of rising caseloads, constitutional duties, and the ethical limits of representation.
The hearing followed weeks of mounting tension between the Public Defender’s Office and the District Attorney’s Office, which has challenged the legality and necessity of the unavailability declaration.
On Tuesday, Razzaq testified that the apparent stability in total filings masks the reality of a dramatic workload increase for his office. He explained that, while the overall number of criminal filings has decreased slightly, the type of cases being prosecuted has changed under the city’s tougher-on-crime approach — resulting in far more complex and time-consuming litigation.
He said that open cases have risen 11 percent since 2019, while police arrests are up approximately 25 percent, translating into about 2,000 additional arrests each year. These new arrests, he testified, have increased the number of active felony and misdemeanor cases and forced more attorneys into trial preparation, making fewer available to take new cases.
Razzaq said that trials demand far greater attorney time and resources than plea agreements and therefore have a cascading effect on staffing availability.
He pointed to the Superior Court’s decision to conduct two simultaneous half-day trials in order to comply with the state’s speedy trial provisions, a measure that underscores how strained the system has become.
He argued that while filings are one indicator, the more telling metric is the number of active pending cases, because those reflect how long attorneys remain tied to each matter.
Razzaq testified that the office currently has 47 felony attorneys — the largest number in its history — but that even this record staffing level cannot keep pace with the volume and complexity of cases moving through the system. He emphasized that “pending cases are up 11 percent since 2019” and that the increase in arrests and filings has created a sustained imbalance that no staffing expansion has yet solved.
The office’s declaration of unavailability, he said, was a necessary step to “help a terrible situation” and to prevent it from “getting worse”.
Razzaq explained that the office’s structure is complex and includes attorneys whose work does not overlap with prosecutorial functions. He testified that the office has seven youth defenders, six immigration attorneys, and six others in grant-funded roles who handle mental health and civil commitment cases.
These attorneys, he said, often litigate against city or administrative entities rather than the District Attorney’s Office, meaning their work cannot be redirected to criminal defense. He noted that the office also has two attorneys working in Clean Slate, three focused on post-conviction litigation, and one dedicated to law enforcement accountability.
Because many of these roles are funded through restricted grants or special-purpose allocations, he told the court that their work cannot legally be reassigned to criminal defense caseloads.
In response to questions from the court, Razzaq reaffirmed that his declaration of unavailability was grounded in ethics and professional responsibility.
He said the decision was not made lightly but was essential to protect the constitutional rights of clients and to maintain compliance with the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of effective assistance of counsel.
The declaration, he said, was based on data from the Judicial Council and the office’s own workload assessments, which showed rising trial volume and longer case durations due to policy and enforcement changes.
He also pointed to the national standards established by the 2023 National Public Defense Workload Study, which concluded that most public defender offices across the country are under-resourced and that excessive caseloads threaten the constitutional adequacy of representation. He testified that San Francisco’s attorneys currently handle roughly double the workload deemed appropriate by those standards.
On Wednesday, Deputy Public Defender Sujung Kim took the stand and provided a legal framework for the office’s decision. Referring to Penal Code sections 987.2 and 987.05, she said that the Public Defender’s Office and the court are “co-equal” when determining availability and that neither the court nor the District Attorney can challenge the public defender’s conflict determinations.
Kim testified that under California law, unavailability arises when an office is unable to meet its constitutional obligations due to conflicts or excessive caseloads, and that taking new cases under such conditions would create an ethical violation.
Kim explained that under section 987.2, a defender must be available, ready, and constitutionally prepared to meet statutory and ethical time pressures. When caseloads prevent that readiness, she said, the law recognizes a conflict of interest — because attorneys cannot effectively represent new clients without compromising existing ones.
She cited In re Edward S. (2009), where the California Court of Appeal held that a conflict is “inevitably created when a public defender is compelled by excessive caseload to choose between the rights of various indigent defendants.”
Kim said the situation in San Francisco has not deteriorated further only because the office has been triaging — redistributing cases internally, declining new appointments when necessary, and prioritizing the most urgent matters.
But she warned that this is not sustainable without new funding and additional staff. The office, she testified, needs to safeguard the rights of its clients, many of whom face the loss of liberty, and the city must meet its constitutional obligation to fund the defense system adequately.
Kim also addressed the differences between the Public Defender’s Office and the court-appointed panel.
She noted that the public defender operates as an independent law office, not as a collection of contract attorneys under the court’s supervision. She said the San Francisco Public Defender, as an elected official, functions independently — much like the District Attorney or City Attorney — and cannot be compelled by the court to take new cases when doing so would breach professional ethics.
She emphasized that this independence is protected by precedent, including Polk County v. Dodson and Gideon v. Wainwright, which affirm that public defenders must be free from judicial or political control to act solely in the interests of their clients.
Kim told the court that the California Bar recommends a maximum of 1,700 casework hours per attorney per year. San Francisco’s felony attorneys, she said, are currently working nearly twice that amount. This workload, she testified, is incompatible with constitutional standards and risks depriving clients of meaningful representation.
She further argued that when excessive workloads prevent an attorney from being “constitutionally prepared,” the proper course is not judicial intervention in the office’s staffing but rather the appointment of alternative counsel through the established panel system.
She said the law places the responsibility on the court to ensure that indigent defendants have access to available and conflict-free representation, not to compel the Public Defender’s Office to violate its professional duties.
The tension between the offices became public after Chief Assistant District Attorney Ana Gonzalez sent a letter to Judge Dorfman arguing that the Public Defender’s declaration of unavailability was unlawful.
Gonzalez claimed that Government Code section 27706 requires the Public Defender to accept appointments when ordered by the court and that the statute “does not grant the public defender any discretion to decline representation.”
She argued that filings are actually “down, not up,” and that the problem is “managerial, not structural.” Gonzalez compared current caseloads to prior years, noting that under former Public Defender Jeff Adachi the office managed more cases with fewer attorneys.
She contended that the average felony attorney now carries 54 active clients and that reliance on national workload studies is misplaced because those standards are “aspirational, not binding.” She warned that “the court cannot function if one side unilaterally refuses to take cases,” calling the unavailability declaration “an abdication of responsibility.”
Chief Attorney Matt Gonzalez strongly rejected those assertions, calling Ana Gonzalez’s claims “misleading” and “incomplete.”
He cited San Francisco Superior Court data showing that active cases have increased nearly 45 percent since pre-COVID levels, and that even if filings appear stable, the number of pending cases has surged.
“There’s a very dramatic increase in pending cases,” he told the Vanguard, “and that’s undisputed.” He said the DA’s analysis ignored the strain caused by growing misdemeanor filings, which require courtroom coverage and divert attorneys from felony trial work.
Matt Gonzalez also criticized the DA’s involvement in what he described as an internal administrative matter. “We don’t think the court has a say in our declaration of unavailability,” he said. “It’s an internal administrative determination to protect clients’ rights.”
He further noted that many of the positions the DA referenced — such as Clean Slate and post-conviction units — are grant-funded and legally restricted. “Some of the positions they take issue with are a result of grant funding,” he said. “They look at it and say, ‘Oh, these people should be supporting the felony unit.’ That’s not how our budget works.”
He defended his office’s attorneys and staff, saying they are already working well beyond standard hours without overtime.
“Nobody has said that any of our staff works less than 40 hours a week,” he said. “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.”
He warned that excessive caseloads threaten defendants’ constitutional rights: “If your caseload gets too high, it makes the assertion of a speedy trial right illusory… 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.’”
Gonzalez characterized the DA’s objections as politically motivated.
“She revealed exactly what this is about — punishing our office for standing up for our clients,” he said.
At the close of testimony, Judge Dorfman said he does not intend to micromanage how the Public Defender’s Office assigns cases internally but acknowledged that the broader questions about capacity, conflict, and systemic funding may require further hearings.
Follow the Vanguard on Social Media – X, Instagram and Facebook. Subscribe the Vanguard News letters. To make a tax-deductible donation, please visit davisvanguard.org/donate or give directly through ActBlue. Your support will ensure that the vital work of the Vanguard continues.
“He said that open cases have risen 11 percent since 2019, while police arrests are up approximately 25 percent, translating into about 2,000 additional arrests each year.”
I thought crime was down in S.F? Isn’t that the narrative we’ve been hearing?
Crime is down.
So the what’s this all about?
“police arrests are up approximately 25 percent, translating into about 2,000 additional arrests each year”
Largely it’s about charging decisions
Yeah right…
So in other words SF is finally arresting and charging people for crimes that were largely going unreported in the last few years.
San Francisco Police Chief William Scott has reported significant drops in crime, with violent crime down 22% and car break-ins at a 22-year low in 2025.
Key highlights from police chief reports
Violent crime: A 22% decrease has been observed in 2025, according to the Governor of California.
Homicides: The homicide rate is at its lowest in 70 years.
Car break-ins: These have fallen by over half and are at their lowest point in 22 years.
Non-fatal shootings: These are down by 19% compared to the previous year
Yup, like I stated.
Crime hasn’t been down, it was just not being reported and dealt with. People are finally being
arrested and tried for their crimes in SF.
So accordingly “police arrests are up approximately 25 percent, translating into about 2,000 additional arrests each year.” I mean it’s literally in your article.
That’s why homicide data is so important, because it’s impervious to the problems you suggest and homicides are at a seventy year low.
KO say, “So the what’s this all about?”
Someone forgot to ‘defund the police’ :-|
It’s astounding, crime is supposedly down accept for the overworked Public defenders who say crime is up.