Maybe you don’t have the right to have a lawyer when arrested in San Francisco these days, as the backlogged SF Public Defender’s Office says they can no longer take cases as Mayor Lurie slashes their budget while jacking up the arrest count.

As Mayor Daniel Lurie’s budget cuts wreak havoc on every city department in town (except the cops!) District Attorney Brooke Jenkins has been on a warpath against the 15% cuts proposed to her department, even asking for a nearly 10% boost for her office’s budget. She is probably unlikely to get that boost. But her office’s counterpart, the SF Public Defender's Office, is also massively hamstrung by budget cuts and an increased caseload, what with all the fentanyl arrests from the latest crackdown.

The toll on the Public Defender’s office is so burdensome that the SF Standard is reporting today that the Public Defender has had to stop taking new cases.

“We’re in a position where we can’t take any more cases,” SF Public Defender Mano Raju told the SF Board of Supervisors Budget Committee on Wednesday. “If we keep on taking cases, we’re not going to be able to provide the representation our clients deserve, and it’s going to have a negative impact on the just outcome of the case.”

It’s unclear whether this is a full-stop moratorium on all new cases. The Standard reports that the Public Defender’s Office said they "will decline new clients on one business day each week."

But it’s easy to see why. In the face of Lurie demanding that the Public Defender cuts its budget by 15%, there’s a double-whammy of the budget cuts along with a lot more defendants accused of crimes being created by the large-scale raids Lurie is ordering the police to do.

For his part, Raju says his office is handling 40% more felony filings than it did in 2020, and 200 more arraignments from January through April of 2025 than it did during the same period of 2024.

That said, Wednesday’s hearing was about the DA Office’s budget, and Jenkins was not at all happy that Raju showed up, let alone allowed an opportunity to speak. The Standard reports she “cocked an eyebrow at the Board of Supervisors inviting Raju to speak,” and quotes her as saying, “I find it fascinating that the public defender is here today. I can’t believe that that is by happenstance.” A separate report from Mission Local notes she snapped at the committee, “Can he have his own hearing?”

If you’ve ever seen the sparkling and relatively new DA’s Office (350 Rhode Island Street) and the frankly much-rattier Public Defender's Office (555 7th Street), you can tell that the Public Defender gets a substantially less budget funds to work with.

And they’re making an issue of it. The Standard points out that the Public Defender's chief attorney Matt Gonzalez said in a letter to SF Superior Court Judge Rochelle East, “Although every person accused of a crime is presumed innocent, San Francisco’s criminal legal system, in practice, operates as if it presumes guilt, as reflected by its current and historic funding allocations.

You might be tempted to say that people accused of crimes deserve their punishment, so who cares if they don’t get legal help. But we've seen plenty of arrests that are complete bullshit in this town. And we will also remind you that the right to legal representation is guaranteed in the Sixth Amendment of the US Constitution.

Related: Judge Overturns Six-Month Jail Sentence for Man Who Ate a Leftover Cookie [SFist]

Image: Kevin Y via Yelp