SF’s poor criminal suspects to get defense lawyers sooner

San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi’s office plans to provide attorneys to poor criminal suspects much sooner — within hours of their arrest — allowing his office to advocate in some cases for lower bail amounts and lesser charges.

The broader idea of the new unit is to counter racial disparities in the city’s criminal justice system. A study being released Tuesday in collaboration with Adachi’s office found that the disparities first show up during arrests, when people of color face more serious charges than white suspects on average, and then persist through the trial process.

Starting in October, Adachi said, attorneys will meet with clients who have been arrested and booked into jail and work to release them on bail as soon as possible.

Currently, the public defender’s office is not appointed to represent clients who cannot afford a private attorney until they are charged by prosecutors and brought into court for arraignment, which can take up to five days. During this time, inmates’ bail amount is based on the allegations made by police during booking, and they often can’t afford it.

With the new unit — which has been given $335,000 funding from Mayor Ed Lee in the fiscal year that begins Saturday — Adachi said his attorneys will be able to petition a judge within eight hours on the bail amount, and can try to work with the district attorney’s office to prevent what they see as overcharging.

“As we look at bail reform, we have to look at what is happening in the early stages of a criminal case,” Adachi said. “It’s very timely and significant that we have the support of the mayor’s office and the Board of Supervisors. They’re looking at how to safely reduce the jail population, and this is one way. But this also addresses the overall structural problems of overcharging and the racial disparities that happen because of that.”

Driving Adachi’s push for early representation is a study conducted by the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, which looked at more than 10,000 criminal cases from 2011 to 2014 that involved representation by the San Francisco public defender’s office.

The study found that African American defendants were held in pretrial custody 62 percent longer than white defendants and that black defendants’ cases took longer to resolve. On average, black people who were arrested faced 24 percent more felony allegations than whites during booking, and the booked offenses were found to be 48 percent more serious for black suspects.

The study noted that the disparities in booking offenses may be caused by factors other than racial bias, such as the nature of suspects’ alleged criminal conduct and their interaction with police officers.

“Our officers charge individuals based on the elements of the crimes present,” the Police Department said in a statement Monday. “The standard for an arrest is based upon probable cause. Whether a case moves forward or not depends on the district attorney’s office’s ability to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Adachi’s office believes early representation will change the outcome for many of the accused, impacting what he sees as a domino effect as police hand a case over to prosecutors and prosecutors argue a case to a jury. The study found that black defendants are convicted of 60 percent more felony charges than white defendants, with their sentences 28 percent longer.

Max Szabo, a spokesman for the San Francisco district attorney’s office, said, “We charge cases based on the facts and the law.

“We’re always open to having more information when we’re making our charging decisions, but we do have concerns over implementation” of the public defender’s new unit, he said. “We will be watching closely.”

Few places in the country have a unit like the one being started by Adachi, who believes his will be the first in California. But Miami-Dade County in Florida has had an early-representation unit since 1990, said Carlos Martinez, the public defender there.

He said support for the effort has come from all sides of the county’s criminal justice system, explaining, “Private attorneys are already doing this for those who can afford them.”

In the short term, Martinez said, getting people out of jail saves the county money that it pays for guards, food, clothing and services. For the fiscal year 2013-14, Martinez said, his unit saved the county more than 144,000 jail days.

In the long run, studies have shown that the more time offenders stay in jail, the more likely they will reoffend.

“The biggest challenge we have in the justice system is making sure that the system is fair and equitable, particularly for people who don’t have any money,” Martinez said. “You cannot do that unless you address the issue of pretrial release. It’s critical in eliminating some of the implicit and explicit biases that exist in the system, not just on the basis of race, but on the basis of socioeconomic status.”