The Board of Supervisors plans to vote on restoring funds to the Public Defender’s Office budget on Tuesday, July 21 at 2:00pm, in City Hall, Room 250. Please attend the hearing if you can! Please meet on the steps of City Hall at 1:40pm where we will distribute Public Defender t-shirts to wear during the […]
Public Defender Jeff Adachi asks the Board of Supervisors to restore funding to avoid increased costs to the city.
Show your support while former clients of the Public Defender’s Office explain how the legal services provided by the office contributed to positive outcomes in their lives.
San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi is facing a $1.9 million dollar cut from his budget. The cut comprises nearly 10 percent of his operating budget, which is primarily used to pay for lawyers who provide services to the City’s poor. No other big city department in San Francisco is facing cuts of this magnitude and the machinations that have led to this are among the most unusual at City Hall.
“In my earlier submission, I predicted that the budget battle between the Mayor and the Public Defender’s office would end badly. What I didn’t predict is what actually happened.”
The Public Defender’s Office and the 29,000 people it represents need your support.
According to the co-chairs of the Constitution Project’s National Right to Counsel Committee, proposed budget cuts to the Public Defender’s Office threaten to exact a toll on San Francisco that would greatly outweigh their modest fiscal benefits.
SF Chronicle: The proposed cut is seriously shortsighted and dishonest. If a defendant can’t get a public defender, the job goes to a pool of private lawyers where one will take the case – and bill the city. Total savings: just about zero.
The Public Defender’s Office has marched in the pride parade for over 25 years. “We’ll have 100 in our contingent with several banners. You’ll know us because we’ll be blasting ‘Fight the Power’ and John Lennon’s ‘Power to the People.'”
The mayor’s plan to slice $1.9 million off the Public Defender’s budget would result in the city paying up to $1.4 million more per year as the public defender would be forced to farm out 2,600 cases to private attorneys.
