SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California State Assembly’s Public Safety Committee voted April 21, 2026, to advance legislation that would require counties to document public defender caseloads, moving forward a proposal supporters say is needed to address a growing crisis in indigent defense. The bill now awaits a full vote of the Assembly.
According to a press release from the Wren Collective, a criminal justice reform advocacy group, the bill was sponsored by Democratic Assemblymembers Dr. Joaquin Arambula and Nick Shultz. The bill had already passed the Local Government Committee on April 15 and now moves to the Appropriations Committee for further consideration.
According to the Wren Collective, California faces a public defender caseload crisis. Public defenders are handling too many clients while juggling numerous court cases, limiting their ability to provide the strongest possible representation to all clients.
But without a standardized data collection system like the one proposed in the bill, state agencies cannot fully assess the scale or severity of the crisis. Offices such as the Legislative Analyst’s Office and the Office of the State Public Defender have been unable to measure the full scope of the problem without such a system.
Research from the Wren Collective shows that counties operating with “flat-fee” systems — where attorneys are hired from private practice for a fixed rate regardless of the number of cases they handle — have attorneys managing well over 400 to 500 cases in counties throughout the state.
The measure is also tied to Assembly Bill 690, the Fair Representation Act, which would ban those flat-fee contracts in a separate effort to reform county public defense systems. That bill is also sponsored by Shultz and is currently awaiting action in the state Senate.
California is one of four states that lacks statewide funding and oversight for trial-level public defenders, contributing to the rise of flat-fee systems in counties seeking to reduce costs. Twenty-four counties in California used flat-fee contracts as their primary method of providing public defense services, according to a 2025 Vanguard article on AB 690.
Under the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the landmark 1963 Supreme Court ruling in Gideon v. Wainwright, every accused person in the United States has the right to an attorney, even if they cannot afford one. The ruling in Gideon led to the rapid expansion of public defender programs nationwide.
But the burden placed on public defenders by excessive caseloads has reduced the quality of representation, potentially compromising the fairness of trials guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment.
California was once a leader in public defense, opening the first public defender office in Los Angeles in 1913, 50 years before the ruling in Gideon.
During the April 22 hearing, Arambula told the committee that “[t]he state does not currently collect data for how this public defense is provided at a county level … [the bill] addresses this issue by establishing reporting requirements on the nature of public defense services provided across the state.”
Public Safety Committee Chair and co-author Shultz said, “We really have to ensure that the robust defense that everyone is entitled to under the Constitution isn’t just a promise on paper, but something we actually deliver, and I think we’re falling short … This bill moves the ball forward.”
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