The office of San Francisco Public Defender Mano Raju was fined $26,000 by a San Francisco Superior Court judge this week — $1,000 each for 26 acts of contempt related to Raju’s decision to limit the number of new felony cases the Public Defender’s Office accepts.
In a series of unfavorable decisions Tuesday for the Public Defender’s Office, Judge Harry Dorfman declined to reverse his contempt ruling, rejected a request to consider the matter one act of contempt rather than 26, and turned down a request to make whatever monetary sanctions were handed down as minimal as possible.
Specifically, the Public Defender’s Office’s legal representative at the hearing, private civil rights attorney Kory DeClark, asked the judge to issue a sanction for as little as $1, arguing the contempt finding itself was enough of a punishment.
He also stressed that Raju was not acting to benefit himself but was taking the action because Raju felt he had a constitutional obligation not to stretch his attorneys too thin for the sake of both them and their clients.
The Public Defender’s Office is legally mandated to represent all clients who need representation, but Raju decided in May 2025 to stop accepting every case assigned by the court, citing an overworked staff amid rising numbers of felony cases being brought by the District Attorney’s Office over the past year.
That led Judge Harry Dorfman to hold him in contempt of court on March 10. Dorfman said in court Tuesday he hoped Raju was going to reverse course and accept the 26 cases that were declined.
Raju said in a news conference outside the courtroom prior to the hearing that the number of hours his attorneys and staff were working made that demand impractical. He said that overworked attorneys cannot provide the legal services that clients are constitutionally entitled to.
He repeatedly pointed to workload studies by multiple legal organizations that advise doing exactly what Raju did when attorneys are at capacity based on the number of hours they dedicate to a case.
Raju said the Public Defender’s Office was continuing to accept the “vast majority of cases” assigned to it, but that accepting more than that would fundamentally violate existing clients’ constitutional rights under the Sixth Amendment to receive legal counsel and a fair trial.
“This is a human rights issue,” he told the judge.
Judge declines calls to reverse contempt ruling
Dorfman said he had received dozens of letters from other public defenders, legal experts and private attorneys similarly urging him to reverse his contempt ruling, but ultimately, he declined, saying he felt the Public Defender’s Office had enough attorneys available to take the cases assigned to it.
He did not offer much justification for that opinion from the bench Tuesday, and Raju said outside the courtroom after the hearing that the judge’s own metrics or criteria had not been made clear in any other communication.
Raju said it appeared the judge had made up his mind already since his comments were typed up beforehand. He said, absent a criteria to peg his opinion to, the judge seemed willing to accept “just a warm body” as enough to be able to declare that an attorney was able to take a new case.
Dorfman also initially ordered the Public Defender’s Office — which is subject to the penalty, not Raju personally — to pay the fine within 10 days, rejecting a request for that to be 30 days. After further arguments, Dorfman said he was persuaded to extend that by a week, meaning the Public Defender’s Office must pay the $26,000 fine by April 10 or potentially face further sanction.
Public defenders from all Bay Area counties turned out to support Raju and offer critiques of the judge’s decision as unprecedented and unwise. Joining him in the hallway for a news conference before the hearing, chief public defenders from the counties of Alameda, Contra Costa and San Joaquin all said they supported Raju’s decision and urged Dorfman and judges in general to yield to public defenders when it came to making workload decisions.
Several attorneys and staff from the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office spoke during the hearing at Dorfman’s invitation. Each said they felt overwhelmed by rising workloads and described being unable to take on any more than they do.
They described the extra time outside of court they take to find clients to get them to show up for court appearances, and the time it takes to address the needs of clients with mental health issues, housing insecurity, and other factors that make their cases time consuming.
Mileti Afuha’amango, a criminal justice specialist social worker who works in the re-entry unit of the Public Defender’s Office, told the judge she had received 318 requests for service in 2024, which more than doubled to 690 in 2025.
She said her work required time for jail visits that can take hours or all day, and to complete health and psychological evaluations for clients who needed them.
Acknowledging defenders’ shoe leather work
Tal Klement, a deputy public defender who has been with the office nearly continuously for more than two decades, said he had seen his workload increase exponentially, and faulted the District Attorney’s Office for trying more cases known as “wobblers” as felonies. Those are cases that could potentially be tried as misdemeanors or felonies and require discretion from the DA’s Office.
Klement also accused the DA’s Office of being less than transparent about which cases they were willing to negotiate before trials, leading him to have to treat more and more cases as if they would be taken to trial. In fact, he said assertions that some cases require more hours because of their likelihood of going to trial were nonsensical because every case had to be treated that way.
He also urged the judge to acknowledge the shoe leather work that attorneys go through to help their clients comply with court orders, including traversing the city and helping people dress themselves when they needed help.
“The court is not a bystander. The law compels the court to inquire here. The court must appoint felony attorneys when they are available. I do conclude you have attorneys available.”
Judge Harry Dorfman
“There is so much that goes on outside these walls that you don’t see, Your Honor,” Klement said.
The Public Defender’s Office will appeal the sanction in hopes of having the order stayed, which the judge said he would be fine with.
Dorfman said he considered Raju was acting in good faith on the principals Raju had identified and indicated multiple times that he was ready to accept direction on the matter from a higher court and expected an appeal would help sort out the issue. He nonetheless said that he rejected Raju’s and other public defenders’ assertions that they alone should be the ones in the legal system to determine whether the office was at capacity.
“The court is not a bystander,” he said. “The law compels the court to inquire here. The court must appoint felony attorneys when they are available. I do conclude you have attorneys available.”