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D.1
THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS OF
CONTRA COSTA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA
DATE: September 17, 1996 MATTER OF RECORD
SUBJECT: Office of the Public Defender 1996 Performance Review
Report
Charles James, County Public Defender, presented both an oral and
a written report to the Board of Supervisors on the performance of
the Office of the Public Defender during Fiscal Year 1995-1996.
THIS IS A MATTER FOR RECORD PURPOSES ONLY
NO BOARD ACTION TAKEN
1996
PERFORMANCE REVIEW
OFFICE OF THE PUBLIC DEFENDER
County of Contra Costa
Martinez, California
Table of Contents
Page
1. Overview..................................................................................................... 1
A. Department Responsibilities .................................................................. 1
B. Organizational Structure......................................................................... 1
1. Geographical .......................................................................................2
2. Case Type ...........................................................................................2
II. Resources..................................................................................................3
A. Financial Resources...............................................................................3
B. Personnel Resources.............................................................................5
C. Affirmative Action ...................................................................................5
D. Sick Leave..............................................................................................5
E. Staff Development..................................................................................6
F. Automation .............................................................................................6
III. Customer Services....................................................................................7
A. Service Delivery System ........................................................................7
B. Client Profile...........................................................................................7
IV. Annual Performance.................................................................................8
PerformanceIndicators......................................................:........................8
V. Challenges and New Directions .............................................................. 10
Challenges...:............................................................................................ 10
1. Office Space ...................................................................................... 10
2. Modern Computer and Communications Equipment ........................ 12
3. Changes in Caseload Seriousness ................................................... 12
Exhibit A Department Organization Chart
Exhibit B Attorney Staffing Chart (by branch and division)
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PERFORMANCE REVIEW
OFFICE OF THE PUBLIC DEFENDER
June 12, 1996
1. Overview
A. Department Responsibilities
The Office of Public Defender provides legal representation for
persons accused of crimes. in Municipal and Superior courts in Contra Costa
County when the accused is financially unable to retain private counsel. In
fiscal year 1994-95, the Department provided representation in over 21,000
criminal cases.
Competent legal representation for each client in a case is a
mandated service for local government. The mandate is rooted (1) in the
United States Constitution's Sixth Amendment and (2) in Government Code
section 27706. Thus, any accused person who faces imprisonment for a
misdemeanor or felony charge, and who cannot afford to hire counsel, is
entitled to the services the Department provides.
B. Organizational Structure
The Department divides its legal work between a "main" office, the
Alternate Defender Office (ADO) and the Special Defense Project Office
(SDO). Both the main office and the ADO provide the same types of
services to clients with similarly configured staffs. The SDO is a single-
attorney position operating in a home office to handle selected expensive,
third-level conflict cases. Administrative matters having to do with
personnel, training, recruitment and provision of fixed assets and supplies
are handled within the Department's main office. However, for ethical
reasons mandated by constitutional and statutory rules regarding the
provision of conflict free representation by attorneys, client representation by
the ADO and SDO is screened off by an ethical wall which prohibits and
prevents professional interaction between the staff of the main office and the
staff of the ADO and SDO. Approximately 17% of the Department's budget
supports the services provided by the ADO and SDO.
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The attached organization and staffing charts (Exhibits A & B) set out
the Department's pertinent groupings of staff by geographical assignment
and by the type of cases handled.
1. Geographical
Two branches of the Department are located in Richmond and
Concord which house 40% and 25% of the Department's staff respectively.
The Department's Martinez branch is physically situated in the downtown
justice complex near the courthouses and the Main Detention Facility. The
Martinez branch is currently divided in three separate locations, and the
Richmond branch is divided in two separate locations. The ADO branch
office is located in a separate building at 1333 Pine Street in Martinez.;
2. Case Type
A major division in the organization of the Department's work is based
on the severity of the charges against a client. Misdemeanor cases are
punishable by up to one year in the county jail. Our Department, in the past
fiscal year, provided representation in over 9,600 misdemeanor cases.
Felony cases are punishable by a possible commitment to state prison. In
the past fiscal year, the Department provided representation in over 4,900
felony cases. Finally, our juvenile division provided representation in more
than 3,800 cases involving both criminal allegations and allegations of child
abuse. Our Department also handles a growing number of civil and criminal
contempt cases upon appointment by the court.
11. Resources
A. Financial Resources
Virtually all the funding for the Department's services comes from the
General Fund. AB 90 (Juvenile Subvention Funding) accounted for
approximately $42,000 in the Department's budget.
The CAO approved proposed budget for the Department for the fiscal
year 1996-97 is $9,632,997. Within the Department, the budget allocated
for the Alternate Defender Office (ADO) is $1,637,609 (17% of the total)
while the main office is allocated $7,995,300 (83%).
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Current Department Budget
ADO
($1,637,609) 170/co
($7,995,300)
Main Office
83%
The Department's budget is comprised primarily of salary costs for
staff. $8,950,687 (93%) of the budget is for salaries and benefits for the
Department's personnel; while only $674,309 (7%) is budgeted for services
and supplies. Last year's budget allocated no funds for capital accounts.
Purchases of desks, chairs, etc., were made from salary savings. We also
depend upon used, surplus furniture more than any other county
department, according to county staff. All the classifications of staff within
the office, with the exception of management personnel, are represented by
various labor organizations and bargaining units. Compensation levels for
employees are set through collective bargaining with the various bargaining
units.
Department Salaries vs. Other Expenses
Services&
($674,309) Supplies
7%
lanes
93%
111 ($8,950,687)
Of the moneys budgeted for personnel, $7,417,407 (77%) is allocated
to pay the salaries and benefits for approximately 65 attorneys who
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comprise the Department's professional staff. The remaining 23% of the
budget for salaries is divided among the clerical support staff (9%),
paralegals and law clerks (7%), and technical employees (7%) such as
investigators.
Department Salaries
Paralegals&
Law Clerks
Clerical 7% ($626,548)
($805,561) 9%
Technical
7%
($626,548)
($7,417,407)
Attorneys
77%
Total costs for indigent defense incurred by the county have continued
to decline in the past fiscal year (1994-95) largely as a result of creation of
the Alternate Defender Office within our Department.
B. Personnel Resources
In attached Exhibits A & B is a description of authorized staff by
division and function. As a result of the Three Strikes law, the Department
has experienced the need for increase in staffing over the last three years.
Some of this growth was economically achieved through the use of
temporary employees. Equity and productivity will require that long term
temporary employees be converted to permanent positions on a regular
basis.
C. Affirmative Action
The staff of the Department is diverse. The Department continues to
strive to increase staff diversity despite budgetary challenges which work
counter to greater work force diversification. The number of newly hired
staff or newly promoted staff has been so low that our efforts to increase
diversification have not been as productive as we would like.
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Ethnically, staff of African-American descent constitutes 12% of the
work force (compared with parity of 7.6% in the county's population). The
percentages for Hispanics (3%) and Asians (4%) are regrettably below the
county's parity figures of 7.7% and 5.4% respectively. During the past year,
the diversity of the Department was enhanced slightly through the hiring of
two attorneys of Asian-Pacific heritage and one investigator of African-
American heritage.
In terms of a gender breakdown, 62% of the Departmental staff is
female, including attorney staff that is 56.5% female and investigative staff
that is 58% female.
D. Sick Leave
The Department's employees utilize sick leave at an above average
level in comparison with other county employees. For a department, we
averaged 88% use of accruals. This high level of sick leave usage is
partially due to the large proportion of female staff (approximately 62%) of
childbearing age, who utilize sick leave in conjunction with their maternity
leaves, as mandated by SDI and county policy. Many employees have very
low usage rate, but the average is affected by the needs of this unique class
and some long term illnesses of certain employees. We frankly do not have
a solution to our usage rate, but assure you we closely monitor the problem.
E. Staff Development
The attorney benefit package provides $350 per year for each attorney
to pursue staff development and training. Attorneys are encouraged to
attend C.E.B., C.P.D.A. and other professional association training seminars
on weekends. State Bar rules require mandatory legal training, which all
lawyers comply with. In house, we have specialized training on matters of
local concern. All felony attorneys attend weekly staffing sessions on
upcoming cases where peer review assists each professional in judgments
regarding their cases. in my view, we have a well-trained, highly competent
staff. Several attorneys in our department, including myself are State Bar
Certified Specialists in Criminal Law. Last year, seven members of our staff
taught evening classes part time in one or more local law schools.
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F. Automation
The Department's work has undergone significant reorientation
through the increased use of computers. Five years ago, the calendaring
functions (periodic lists of scheduled court appearances, broken out by
attorney and court location) for the Department were tracked by physically
logging in each client's file and typing daily calendars. Now, by using the
Law and Justice Information System accessed through the county's
mainframe computers, this function is automated. Clerical personnel all
have terminals at their desks to input and retrieve the information needed for
scheduling attorney appearances. ;=
Word processing — an integral part of any law office setting where
extensive typewritten briefs in cases must be prepared — is extensively
utilized in our clerical support system for attorneys. All briefs are prepared
for filing with the court, and a large proportion are drafted initially, on
computers shared by attorneys and legal research clerks in our branch
libraries. Databases containing copies of briefs indexed by subject are also
maintained so that work need not be replicated for each and every motion
filed.
The Department has been expanding its use of CD-ROM technology
for cheaper and more easily accessed legal research, traditionally available
only in hundreds of volumes of books housed in the Department's libraries
where the attorneys do legal research. Additionally, the Department
subscribes to commercial on-line database services, like Westlaw and
Lexis, but strives to use the cheaper CD-ROM technology where it can.
All attorney staff utilize the voice mail system provided and maintained
through the county's telecommunications department. Both management
and clerical employees utilize payroll and personnel tracking systems
provided to departments through the mainframe maintained by Data
Processing. Finally, the Department has many staff members trained in
using both the Law and Justice System and the county's e-mail system; but
full utilization of these communication and information systems is severely
constrained by a lack of sufficient resources to acquire needed hardware.
This subject will be addressed below with regard to challenges facing the
Department.
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111. Customer Services
A. Service Delivery System
All services provided by the Public Defender are mandated by Federal
Constitutional standards and state statutes. Our mandate is to provide
competent legal representation on appointed cases. Our delivery system is
vertical in design, to maximize competency, client satisfaction and case
control. Each attorney is individually responsible for these assigned cases
from plea through sentencing. Certain appearances, particularly in
misdemeanor cases, are handled in grouped assignment calendars to
promote efficiency. Consistent with case law, the department assigns
-- attorneys to clients based on skill, experience and availability. Clients may
not change attorneys without court order, except in unusual circumstances.
B. Client Profile
The Office of Public Defender's clientele consists of persons who are
charged with crimes in the courts of Contra Costa County and who cannot
afford to retain private counsel. Every client is screened for.financial
eligibility. Occasionally, a court will order our Department to provide
representation for a client when, for some reason, the person has been
initially denied eligibility by our Department.
Client financial eligibility must be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
No rigid guidelines can be established as each case has its own degree of
complexity based on the nature of the charges, the possible defenses and a
range of other factors that are quite case specific. Those complexities
complicate the difficult task of determining what financial resources may be
currently available to the client, given the infinitely variable financial profile
for each client (family size, indebtedness, sources of income, etc.).
At the conclusion of the case, each client of the Department is subject
to referral by the court to the Office of Revenue Collection, a division of the
Administrator's Office. Each client's ability to pay over a period of time is
then assessed by the Office of Revenue Collection in conjunction with the
court's order that the county be reimbursed by the client for the costs of
Departmental services. Department staff play no role in making these
assessments or in the collection of reimbursement.
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D. l
IV. Annual Performance
Performance Indicators
In the Bay Area, Contra Costa County is one of the leaders in number
for Three Strikes cases per capita. Aggressive prosecution efforts require
our department to be very productive to meet the mandated defense
demands in these complex and time-consuming cases.
"Three Strikes"per capita-5 Bay Area Counties
3.0
m
2.5 —
2.0 —
g
1.5 —
1.0—
E
E 0.5 —
E
0
v 0.0
Alameda San San Contra Santa
Francisco Mateo Costa Clara
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The chart below reflects the number of Three Strikes cases per
budget dollar in comparable Public Defender offices and dramatically
illustrate both the cost effectiveness and productivity of our department.
"Three Strikes" Cases as Function of Office Budget
Main Office
m 4— 3.5 3.57
0
3.5 -
0
:E 3—
2.43
2.5 — 2
2—
.5 —
— 1.31
tll
Y 1 —
.0
N
0.5-
0-1
Alameda San San Santa Contra
Francisco Mateo Clara Costa
$16 million $9 mildon $7 million $14 million $8 ninon
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A rough measure of our productivity can be seen through a
comparison of our budget with our adversary's, the District Attorney. While
it is true the D.A. prosecutes some retained private counsel cases and third-
level conflict cases that we do not handle; similarly, our department
represents about 2,000 Child Protective Services (W & I Code 300), LPS
(mental health), and civil and criminal contempt cases, where we face
county counsel or private attorneys and the D.A. is not involved. We have
ten lawyers assigned to cases where the D.A. is not involved. In balance,
we have equivalent workloads, and the following chart is a rough gauge of
our productivity vis a vis a comparable department.
Comparison of Contra Costa County District Attorney&
Public Defender Budgets-Criminal Sector
$14,000,000 $13,518,037
$12,000,000 7
$9,632,997
$10,000,000 T
$8,000,000
i
$6,000,000 T
i
$4,000,000
$2,000,000
$0 '
D.A. P.D.
V. Challenges and New Directions
Challenges
1. Office Space
The foremost challenge facing the Department is obtaining office
space which fits its needs so that the staff can increase current levels of
productivity. In my first annual report in 1988, 1 stated this was the most
serious problem facing the Department. It continues to be true. Available
office space in the major branches (Martinez and Richmond) is practically
the same as 20 years ago, when the Department had half as many clients
and half as many staff members. We currently have eight separate
locations. Currently, small portions of office space are rented in small
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D. (
private buildings near the Richmond and Martinez offices. Such
arrangements for housing staff are quite inefficient (for staff communication),
costly (additional rents and overhead for equipment), and even unsafe (staff
transiting along downtown streets after dusk carrying large numbers of files;
female staff in small offices with no security during work and after work
hours).
Within existing office space, attorneys often must share offices
designed for one person or utilize "bullpen" office space with several desks
in carrels. Such arrangements are contrary to standards prescribed by Bar
Association guidelines which stress the need to retain confidentiality in
communications between clients and an attorney. They also adversely
impact the morale of the staff with respect to self-image and call into .
question the ability of the Department, as an employer, to provide a
habitable and professional workplace for them to carry out their duties as
attorneys and employees of the county.
Major changes in the county's Court Coordination Program have
aggravated the problems faced by the Department in providing efficient work
sites for its attorneys and employees. For the past two years, every felony
case (in excess of 4,600 cases per year) has had two additional
appearances scheduled in the Martinez courthouses before a Superior
Court criminal calendar judge. This program has added a minimum of 8,000
attorney appearances for our felony clients in Martinez, notwithstanding the
fact that over half of the Department's attorneys assigned to provide
representation in felony cases have their offices in Richmond.
Consequently, many attorneys are forced to spend an inordinate amount of
the working day traveling by car between Richmond (where their offices are
located) and Martinez where the courthouse is located.
Additionally, increased pretrial incarceration rates for felony offenders
has resulted in most felony clients of the Department being housed at either
the Martinez Detention Facility or the West County Detention Facility of the
Sheriffs Department. It is difficult for the attorneys based in Richmond to
regularly see and consult with clients who are incarcerated in Martinez. The
West County Detention Facility is situated almost halfway between our
Martinez branch and our Richmond branch and is equally inconvenient for
all our attorney and paralegal staff.
10
Further, the destruction of the courthouse in Concord has made our
Concord office space totally irrelevant to our function. The office is over 10
miles from the major work cite, the Martinez courts. We continue to work
with the county to solve these problems, but the progress has been painfully
slow.
2. Modern Computer and Communications Equipment
Intraoffice communication (for better client services and more efficient
utilization of staff) is retarded by budgetary constraints on the purchase of
computer and communications hardware. Less than 30% of our attorney
staff can be linked for computer communication because of constraints on
the purchase of sufficient computer terminals and controllers to link those
terminals to the mainframe. We need to increase the number of personal
computers available to staff. Only 30% of our attorney staff have computers
available for use in their offices. Furthermore, networking personal
computers within and between our branch offices would increase the
efficiency of the Department in utilizing software and in producing legal
motions, documents, and other data available to all staff. Unfortunately,
again this year, our proposed annual budget contains no money for
computers or automation.
3. Changes in Caseload Seriousness
While the overall number of cases has remained somewhat constant
over the past two years, the challenges facing attorney staff in felony cases
have risen dramatically. Two words familiar to every Californian best
exemplify this challenge: "Three Strikes."
The Office of Public Defender, as of May 1, 1996, is representing
approximately 223 clients charged with "strikes" under the Legislation
recently enacted as Proposition 184. One hundred five of these clients are
charged with a "third" strike, meaning that the potential sentence in those
cases is 25 years to life. For the Department's staff, the significance of
representation for such clients charged under these new laws might best be
seen in this comparison. Over the past two fiscal years, the Department
provided representation in approximately 55 homicides each year. While a
homicide is the most serious charge a client can face and a criminal
defense attorney can be called upon to handle, fewer than five to ten of such
cases each year resulted in a client of the Department being sentenced to
11
prison for a minimum of 25 years. Thus, in terms of potential consequences
for the client and the attendant complexity of providing representation to a
client facing such lengthy'prison terms, the staff of our Department faces an
unparalleled situation: a many-fold increase in the number of professionally
and emotionally taxing cases for each felony attorney since the institution of
the "Three Strikes" sentencing scheme for recidivist offenders.
Cases with 25-to-Life Sentence Exposure
300 — 280
250 —
200 — 0 3 Strikes
150 — 145 ■Homicides
100 —
50 47 ;
0 —
1992-93 1993-94 1994-95
Yet, while "Three Strikes" is a well known symbol of the increased
penalties at stake in certain criminal cases, it is only the tip of the iceberg.
This Department performs its mandated function in a time when some
criminal conduct (and the cases that result therefrom) is becoming
increasingly more violent and the public's toleration for humane treatment of
persons convicted of crime is growing noticeably short. As a Department
whose mandate is to provide competent and effective representation for the
accused in the criminal justice system, the services rendered, and the job
done by the Department's staff, has been made more difficult by these
daunting political and public reactions. Thus, the greatest challenge for the
Department is to continue to provide resources and a supportive work
environment for a dedicated staff called upon to do an unpopular job.
- CA ,-_
Charles James
Public Defender
CHJ:sdc
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