Overview

• District Attorney Brooke Jenkins’s $4.5 million funding request has moved to the full Board of Supervisors for final approval, citing staffing cuts and halted prosecutions if denied.
• Public Defender Mano Raju has started declining new cases one day per week, citing a 40% rise in felony filings and resource shortages as unsustainable.
• Jenkins warned that a 15% budget cut would force layoffs of 25 attorneys, potentially halting misdemeanor prosecutions and increasing caseload delays.
• Raju highlighted a $40 million disparity between the DA’s and Public Defender’s budgets, despite his office handling heavier workloads and being constitutionally mandated to represent all defendants.
• Supervisors, led by Shamann Walton, are weighing the broader impacts of funding decisions on San Francisco’s overburdened criminal justice system.