{"id":1339,"date":"2009-07-13T16:20:56","date_gmt":"2009-07-14T00:20:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/2009\/07\/13\/leigh-responds-to-henderson\/"},"modified":"2017-05-28T13:49:20","modified_gmt":"2017-05-28T21:49:20","slug":"leigh-responds-to-henderson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/1339\/leigh-responds-to-henderson\/","title":{"rendered":"Leigh Responds to Henderson"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nG. Whitney Leigh<\/p>\n

By G. Whitney Leigh<\/strong><\/p>\n

July 13, 2009<\/p>\n

In responding to our post, Defending the Public Defender<\/a>, Assistant District Attorney Paul Henderson suggests<\/a> that by exposing the political machinations and fiscally unsound reasoning behind the proposed slashing of the Public Defender’s budget, we are telling a “story”, that does not reflect the “facts.”<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Henderson, for whom we have great respect, addresses few if any of the facts that we raised in our post. Instead, Henderson breathlessly takes issue with multiple arguments neither relevant nor raised.<\/p>\n

In our post<\/a>, we argued that the Board President’s apparent determination to make any restoration of the Public Defender’s budget contingent upon an equal payment to the District Attorney is unreasonable because:<\/p>\n

(1) the Public Defender’s budget is dwarfed by the District Attorney’s budget;<\/p>\n

(2) the District Attorney has access to numerous outside funding sources unavailable to the Public Defender, including “stimulus” funds;<\/p>\n

(3) the proposed budget would impose cuts on the Public Defender greatly disproportionate to those faced by the District Attorney or the City Attorney’s Office.<\/p>\n

Henderson does not dispute that any of these facts are true. Instead, he offers a prosaic discussion of the difficulties faced by prosecutors, and rails against those who would devalue prosecutors’ dedication or contributions. These observations might make for an interesting forum discussion. Personally, I think any discussion of the District Attorney’s resources that omits the police department, which provides both an army of investigators and trained, experienced witnesses (wouldn’t it be nice if we could all conduct a direct exam simply by asking “and what happened next”) is fatally misleading.<\/p>\n

A criminal defense attorney will always be at a disadvantage when opposed to a DA in a contest of general opinion. Henderson’s post provides an example of why this is so – who exactly wants to be on the side of drug dealing, gangs or domestic violence? The easy public appeal of such arguments has been well known at least since the Willie Horton ads<\/a> were aired. But this is a sideshow debate, one that our post did not raise. And diverting as it may be, this discourse does not address the fundamental inequities presented by the proposed slashing of the Public Defender’s budget, or the fiscal and practical consequences our City faces if the proposed cuts go through.<\/p>\n

One clear example of the distinct severity of the cuts faced by Public Defender – and the impact the cuts will have on the public defenders’ ability to provide services to those who truly need them is shown in the unique sacrifices the public defenders already have made. This year — before the proposed cuts — the Public Defender voluntarily imposed a blanket ten percent salary reduction (in addition to reducing his staff by ten persons). Of the City’s government attorneys, only the public defenders have made such self-imposed cuts. But these attorneys’ willingness to make this unique sacrifice reflects their awareness of the dire situation they face – and the reality that the proposed additional slashing of the Public Defender’s budget will make their work simply impossible.<\/p>\n

Public defenders cannot control the number of cases they are assigned. As the Controller’s report found, the Defenders’ felony caseload is 55 percent over capacity – the misdemeanor caseload is 66 percent over the American Bar Association standard. District Attorneys cannot be sued for incompetently representing the City or a victim. But a defense attorney who fails to competently represent a criminal defendant can be sued or disbarred. This reality in part explains why public defenders would choose to cut their own salaries in order to stave off personnel cuts. But as I indicated above, they stand alone amongst the City’s governmental attorney offices for having made this sacrifice voluntarily.<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, the “facts” remain undisputed. The City is poised to go forward with severe cuts to the Public Defender’s office that exceed those imposed on other departments – cuts that are both inequitable and unwise.<\/p>\n

It is not too late to change course.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

G. Whitney Leigh By G. Whitney Leigh July 13, 2009 In responding to our post, Defending the Public Defender, Assistant District Attorney Paul Henderson suggests that by exposing the political machinations and fiscally unsound reasoning…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6413,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nLeigh Responds to Henderson - Fog City Journal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/1339\/leigh-responds-to-henderson\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Leigh Responds to Henderson - Fog City Journal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"G. 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