Paul Rodriguez runs what is essentially the second biggest law firm in the region, only behind the District Attorney’s Office. Four large divisions. Nearly 550 employees. And in San Diego County, the firm represents nine out of every 10 criminal defendants.
It’s been less than a month since Rodriguez took over as the county’s top public defender, leading the second largest public defense office in California, following Los Angeles County. The Office of the Public Defender provides legal defense for criminal defendants who are not able to afford an attorney.
The veteran attorney inherits an office that has faced turmoil in recent years. Added to that, his attorneys are taking the rare step of trying to disqualify a local judge from hearing any of the cases involving clients represented by local public defenders. And, his office is bracing for an expected tsunami of old cases with defendants who may be resentenced due to changes in the law that took effect at the start of the year.
Oh, and now he has to find a new person to lead the largest of the four divisions. That deputy chief, essentially his second-in-command, is leaving.
San Diego County tapped Rodriguez late last year to replace Randy Mize, who retired after 35 years with the office. Rodriguez cut his teeth with an internship with the Alternate Public Defender, and that solidified his passion for public defense. In 2000, he was hired as an entry-level deputy public defender By 2014 he was running the El Cajon branch office, where he oversaw 50 attorneys and staffers.
The Public Defender oversees four divisions: the Primary Public Defender, the Alternate Public Defender, the Multiple Conflicts Office and the Office of Assigned Council. They are separate from each other, metaphorically walled off, to avoid conflict of interest, since one office cannot represent multiple defendants in the same case.
The biggest is the office of the Primary Public Defender, which gets the lion’s share of the cases. And one of the first challenges Rodriguez faces is replacing the person who has been leading that office.
Rodriguez said Kate Braner — who ran that office and also oversaw all four offices as an interim last year — is moving on to other opportunities. He said he won’t just tap a replacement. He’s encouraging internal applicants for the position.
“I want to hear from folks who have experience, who have been doing the hard job for so many years,” he said. He’s looking to get the new chief deputy public defender in place by the end of February.
The office is about to become very busy handling cases under the Racial Justice Act, which allows anyone in prison to petition the court if racial bias played a role in their conviction or sentencing. It could mean new trials, resentencings or vacated death sentences.
Rodriguez suspects those cases may number in the thousands. He might end up crafting a new team, or might divvy up cases between teams. But he doesn’t expect to hire any more hands. “It’s going to be a tremendous challenge for our office, especially during these tight budgetary times,” he said.
Rodriguez declined to talk about a motion his office recently filed seeking to disqualify a Superior Court judge in a homicide case involving one particular Racial Justice Act petition. Two of his chief deputy public defenders filed a declaration alleging the judge made racist and insensitive comments while meeting with them. The judge declined to recuse himself.
Moreover, the two attorneys said they want to see the judge no longer preside over any cases of defendants represented by public defenders. That would include all four offices Rodriguez runs.
Rodriguez said two reasons propelled him to chase the chance to be the big boss. The first is the clients and his commitment to representing indigent defendants.
“People are born to poverty, terrible circumstances, they suffer great abuse, mistreatment by the people closest to them. I wanted to be a voice for people who perhaps had not yet been able to express their own voices,” Rodriguez said.
The second is the staff. “I think that we cannot do the very serious work that we do every day, the very challenging work, without a staff that is supported, that feels heard and that is motivated to do the work because it’s very hard, very taxing work,” Rodriguez said.
He said he believes he brought that sort of staff support to the El Cajon branch office. “I want to be able to do that on a larger scale so that we can move forward together as an organization,” he said.
Last year the Office of the Public Defender addressed two workplace suits brought by staff attorneys. One suit ended with a $2.6 million jury verdict for a gay man who alleged he faced discrimination for the way he presented himself, and that he was let go after complaining about a supervisor’s allegedly racist comment.
The county also settled for $900,000 with an attorney who said she was forced to resign because of her political activism outside of work.
The county denied the allegations and said the two attorneys had been on probationary periods and were not hired on due to low scores in an internal review panel.
Last month, a pair of married former deputy public defenders sued separately, alleging workplace harassment and hostility. One alleged she endured sexual harassment by a colleague, and her husband said he faced retaliation after his wife chose to speak out. That suit, in relative infancy, is not resolved.
The new chief said the suits cannot be ignored, that there are “lessons to be learned.” He said he wants transparency and to listen to what the staffers have to say.
“And once we do that, we can devise a plan to move forward together and to learn some of these very difficult lessons that we have to learn,” he said.
Rodriguez, 54, was born in Santiago, Chile, but moved with his family to Argentina, Puerto Rico, Florida, Luxembourg and Belgium. Those travels as his father developed business were not glamorous, he said. But they opened his eyes to injustice everywhere.
“I just had this sense of fairness as I grew up that everyone needed to be treated fairly,” he said.
He did not speak English when his family first arrived in the U.S. when he was about 10 years old. The family headed to Europe and returned about five years later, eventually landing in San Diego. He credits his mother for keeping the family together in tough times, and says her “bravery, tenacity, and willingness to work very hard” was inspirational.
Rodriguez — who speaks English, Spanish and French — graduated from Patrick Henry High School. He attended Grossmont College before getting into UC San Diego.
He graduated from the university with a degree in visual arts and a eye toward Los Angeles and making movies. Then he took a trip to his native Chile, which had been under dictatorial rule from 1973 to 1990. He spoke of really seeing his native country the first time at an adult, seeing the injustices.
It stirred him. Led him to earn a degree from University of San Diego School of Law. And soon after that, a rather fateful internship at a place he now runs.
