Cash-strapped Alameda County public defender starts turning away cases

The Oakland Tribune reports:

The Alameda County Public Defender's Office has begun telling judges it can't represent certain defendants because it lacks enough money and staff members to give them a constitutionally adequate defense.

Public Defender Diane Bellas had warned of this weeks ago. But the county's Board of Supervisors said the 14 positions expected to be cut from her office Sept. 4 would be restored only if costs to the county rise with the referral of these defendants to the Alameda County Bar Association's court-appointed attorney program.

Bellas said her conservative estimate is that her office will turn away about 250 misdemeanor defendants who aren't in jail at Oakland's Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse each month; about 350 out-of-custody misdemeanor defendants per month at the Hayward Hall of Justice; and about 250 probation violation defendants per month at Oakland's Rene C. Davidson Courthouse — in all, about 10,200 clients per year.

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