Contra Costa County Grand Jury
• 2015-2016
A Report by the 2015-2016 Contra Costa County Grand Jury*
⚠️ Translation Notice: This content has been automatically translated. The original English text is the official version. Translation may contain errors.
⚠️ Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.
Findings and Recommendations 6 findings
F1
The Office of Public Defender is dedicated and committed to providing the best legal defense possible to those defendants who qualify for its services.
No recommendations for this finding
F2
Persons applying for the services of the Public Defender do not sign the financial screening questionnaire under penalty of perjury.
Related Recommendations (1)
R1
The Public Defender should require the potential client referred by the court to attest under penalty of perjury to the accuracy of the information provided to the Public Defender.
F3
The Public Defender does not verify the financial information provided by individuals applying for its services.
Related Recommendations (1)
R2
To verify the information provided on the financial eligibility questionnaire form. The Public Defender should develop guidelines concerning when documentation of financial circumstances is required and the type of such documentation, such as prior year tax return, employment pay stubs or advices, utilization of credit services, etc.
F4
The Public Defender refers some potential clients to the Criminal Conflicts Panel because the Public Defender is operating at capacity.
No recommendations for this finding
F5
Without verifying financial eligibility it is impossible to ascertain an individual has fraudulently obtained representation from the Office of the Public Defender.
Related Recommendations (2)
R1
The Public Defender should require the potential client referred by the court to attest under penalty of perjury to the accuracy of the information provided to the Public Defender.
R2
To verify the information provided on the financial eligibility questionnaire form. The Public Defender should develop guidelines concerning when documentation of financial circumstances is required and the type of such documentation, such as prior year tax return, employment pay stubs or advices, utilization of credit services, etc.
F6
Section (c) of California Penal Code section 987 contemplates that a defendant may be prosecuted for perjury based upon false material contained in the financial statement.
No recommendations for this finding
Conclusions 5
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CL1The Office of Public Defender refers many cases to the Criminal Conflict Panel. The vast majority of these referrals are because the Office of Public Defender is working at capacity and, thus, does not have the ability to take on another case. Defendants may be more likely to underreport financial resources to qualify for the services of the Public Defender, because financial information is neither signed under penalty of perjury nor verified. This abuse of the right to defense, by ineligible defendants, detracts from the Public Defender's capacity to carry out its mission to provide a defense to those indigent defendants who have no alternative. In addition, abuse by ineligible defendants using the Office of Public Defender, Alternate Defender, or Criminal Conflict Panel taxes the resources of Contra Costa County and, ultimately detracts from the County's ability to provide its citizens with other services. The County can minimize the potential for defendants fraudulently qualifying for the Public Defender's services. Such changes might result in:
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CL2Fewer cases taken on by the Office of Public Defender resulting in fewer
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CL3cases referred to the Criminal Conflict Panel. Defendants eligible for public representation receiving even better representation.
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CL4A financial savings to Contra Costa County.
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CL5Contra Costa County 2015-2016 Grand Jury Report 1610
No Responses Found 1
Government entities assigned to respond to this report. No response documents have been linked in our database.
Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors
Elected County Office
* This report's PDF did not contain easily extractable text and required Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis. There may be minor errors in the extracted findings and recommendations due to OCR limitations with scanned documents.