OAKLAND — Worried over what he calls the “constitutional crisis” of legal representation in criminal courts, the Alameda County Public Defender has called a silent protest on April 23, asking “everyone who supports the right to counsel to wear black.”
The call for solidarity by Brendon Woods is only the latest domino to fall as public defender’s offices around the Bay Area have called attention to the same issue: skyrocketing rates of criminal cases that aren’t met with proportional funding for the attorneys tasked with defending the accused. In Alameda County, 2025 saw nearly 1,500 new felony cases compared to two years earlier, Woods’ office said in a news release. The San Francisco public defender reported a 56 percent increase in felony cases since 2019.
“I’m at the point where I cannot ask my staff to do more work. It would be unhealthy to them, unhealthy to their families, unhealthy to our community and, most importantly, unhealthy to the clients we represent,” Woods said in a written statement issued by his office. “We are not going to be able to defend people properly, and innocent people will be convicted. This is a constitutional crisis.”
The news release comes with a prediction that the public defender’s office may resort to more drastic measures, like in San Francisco, where Public Defender Mano Raju was fined $26,000 by a judge, who found his refusal to take on new cases amounted to contempt of court. An appellate court stayed the fine while the state Supreme Court reviews it. San Francisco’s District Attorney called Raju’s actions a “dereliction of duty,” but he has doubled down, saying his office is underfunded and unable to deal with increasing workloads that require more intensive work in the modern age.
As surveillance cameras and license plate readers proliferate society, it has become increasingly common for evidence in criminal cases to come in digital form, often with hours of footage that must be subject to review. This, along with the increased caseload, have pushed defense attorneys to a breaking point, they say.
In many counties, including Alameda, public defenders are aided by a conflicts panel — private attorneys who agree to take on cases the public defender is unable to grab. But the public defender’s office still assumes the bulk of the work, and in Alameda County has about 150 fewer employees than their counterparts at the DA’s office, Woods said in the news release.
The Alameda County District Attorney’s office, headed by Ursula Jones Dickson, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday. Woods said the first casualties of underfunding will be “overpoliced and vulnerable Black, Brown and immigrant communities.”
“What’s happening in San Francisco is a preview of what will happen in other counties unless we get more funding,” Woods said. “We can’t protect our clients’ rights without proper resources.”
