Manohar (Mano) Raju
- Office: Public Defender
- Election Date: November 8, 2022
- Candidate: Manohar (Mano) Raju
- Due Date: Monday, August 29, 2022
- Printable Version
Thank you for seeking GrowSF's endorsement for the November 8, 2022 election! GrowSF believes in a growing, beautiful, vibrant, healthy, safe, and prosperous city via common sense solutions and effective government.
The GrowSF endorsement committee will review all completed questionnaires and seek consensus on which candidates best align with our vision for San Francisco and have the expertise to enact meaningful policy changes.
We ask that you please complete this questionnaire by Monday, August 29, 2022 so we have enough time to adequately review and discuss your answers.
Vision
GrowSF believes in a growing, beautiful, vibrant, healthy, safe, and prosperous San Francisco. We work to propose and pass laws that align incentives of private businesses and individuals to promote shared prosperity for every San Franciscan.
This section of our questionnaire seeks to help us gain an understanding of your alignment with our vision for San Francisco. Note that some of the questions may be outside the scope of the office you're running for.
Short-form questions
Please mark the box that best aligns with your position. You may explain any position if you so desire, but this section is designed to be a quick overview of your governing philosophy and view of the city's problems.
The Public Defender's priorities
Should the Public Defender's office spend [more/less/the same amount of] time advocating for broader policy changes as it currently does?
I believe that the Public Defender's Office should spend more time advocating for border policy changes than it currently does. By expanding our policy efforts, I aim to advance the office's services and programs that I have spearheaded. This includes the "Be the Jury" Pilot Program, that is paying jurors $100/day to alleviate the financial hardship that would otherwise deprive community members of the opportunity to serve on juries. Another one of my top legislative priorities is to pass AB 937, the VISION Act, authored by Assemblymember Wendy Carillo, currently on the senate floor for the 2022 legislative session.
The Public Defender's Office, because of our proximity to some of the most vulnerable members of our society, is uniquely positioned to advocate for meaningful policy change that can contribute to community health. While I am committed to maintaining high-level direct representation, policy work ensures our direct representation work has sustainable impact.
Recognizing that resources at the PD's office are finite, how will you balance defending the accused with broader policy reform?
Appropriately funding the Public Defender's Office will increase our capacity to better serve our clients and alleviate the burdensome caseloads our defenders carry. I have pushed for a larger budget to obtain the funding and resources to balance representing our clients to the best of our ability with expanding our policy reach. I have already expanded the public defense budget in the last two budget cycles. If re-elected I will continue to aggressively advocate for a bigger budget, as the need for strong public defense in our city is now more important than ever.
Open lines of communication and supportive structures ensure that we strike the right balance. Policy reform can often benefit our defense of the accused in an exponential way. Developing logic models that ensure that our distribution of resources matches our vision is an ongoing process that I am committed to maintaining in a way that maximizes policy impact while not sacrificing the direct representation that will always consume the majority of our resources. One way of doing so is to recruit and retain high level policy advocates with proven track records and strong relational skills.
What are the top issues facing San Francisco, and what do you intend to do to solve them?
The top 3 issues I will address are inequity in the legal system, racialized inequality & economic instability. Our clients are deeply impacted by all of these issues, and therefore our office must play a pivotal role in dismantling the conditions that contribute to the crisis. To address these issues, our office must provide strong & aggressive public defense to keep clients out of jail & connect them with critical services like stable employment, secure housing & healthcare. I am obsessed with raising the level of defense in the courtroom and plan to grow our training and management techniques so that we can continue to raise the level of defense that we provide. Further, under my leadership, my office has tackled the issues leading to inequality and instability head-on. The Clean Slate & End the Cycle programs in my office connect clients with social workers & provide linkages to critical services like employment, housing and healthcare to unchain them from a life of constant precarity. Also, on the front end, bolstering youth empowerment initiatives like our M.A.G.I.C. programs leads to positive trajectories that can generate more equity and stability.
Budget
| Do you think San Francisco spends too little, too much, or just enough on... | Too little | Just enough | Enough, but badly | Too much |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Police and public safety | x | |||
| The DA's office | x | |||
| The Public Defender's office | x | |||
| Homeless services | x | |||
| Drug prevention and treatment | x |
If you want to explain any positions above, please feel free:
Is the Public Defender's office adequately funded?
We spend exponentially more on the departments that arrest, confine, incarcerate, and monitor than we do on the one department that fights for the most marginalized. The San Francisco Public Defender's Office receives about half the amount of funding of the District Attorney's Office. Public defenders receive six times less than the Sheriff's Department, and 14 times less than the San Francisco Police Department. This problem of overfunding law enforcement and drastically underfunding public defender offices is not unique to San Francisco. This is a national and long-standing issue that furthers inequity.
Which Public Defender programs or departments need increased funding? Which could get by with less funding?
We need funding commitments to public defenders so that we can 1) provide a level of representation that is consistent with the requirements of the task of defending vulnerable individuals ensnared in the ever-expanding carceral system; 2) thoroughly and speedily litigate our cases, and 3) breathe life into legal system reforms so that changes in the law can actually reach those they were intended to reach.
In addition, we need to invest in more Public Defender staffing, including non-attorney staff, to connect those arrested with rehabilitation, employment, and educational opportunities. I plan to direct increased funding to hire more culturally competent social workers and paralegals to expand programs like the Clean Slate Program and the Immigration Unit, to expand the employment and educational pipelines that our office can facilitate. Given the funding disparities our office is faced with, I do not believe that there are any programs or departments that need less funding. Public defender work is extremely challenging, and our mission-driven staff work extremely hard.
Tell us one thing you think needs to change in SF that the average voter wouldn't know about.
The average voter in SF and most major cities does not understand that many convictions have little to do with careful weighing of the evidence, but rather result from common practices of plea bargaining that stems from overcharging, pre-trial detention, and trial taxes that many judges impose. In order to overcome these practices, a vigorous and empowering public defender office is essential.
As a Public Defender, I understand firsthand that we cannot improve public safety without dismantling the unfair and racist societal conditions that bring clients to our door in the first place. To address these issues, our city should invest in strong and aggressive public defense to keep clients out of jail and connect them with critical services like stable employment, secure housing and healthcare. Truly seeing the accused and fighting for them is often a springboard to an upward trajectory that curbs recidivism. Further, from a 5th Amendment position of trust, we are uniquely situated to have honest conversations that can lead to culturally competent connections to services. This is why I've planned to launch pilot programs that help alleviate economic, educational and health disparities that trap our clients in a vicious cycle of poverty and carcerality. I've already implemented pilot programs like the Youth Defender Program that provides paid internships to public school youth, the Integrity Unit that spotlights police misconduct, and the Freedom Project that challenges excessive sentences and wrongful convictions.
Long-form questions
This section is optional.
We know your time is short, so please feel free to respond to the questions below which you think are most relevant to the position you're running for (but you are, of course, welcome to answer all of them). It is not necessary to answer these questions to secure our endorsement, but more context always helps us make better decisions.
The Public Defender's office
What is your position on first time non-violent drug dealing charges?
What is your position on repeat or violent drug dealing charges?
What will you do differently from your predecessor?
What are the top criminal justice system reforms that you think San Francisco should implement?
What does success look like to you?
Victims' rights
Do the accused receive adequate support from the Public Defender's office? Why or why not?
What would you change about the support the accused receive?
Police
What do you consider are some recent successes and struggles of SFPD?
In what ways could the SFPD shift its priorities to better serve the city?
How should the SFPD interact with homeless individuals?
Budget
If you could wave a magic wand, how might you change the budget for the DA, Public Defender, and SFPD?
As trusted advocates for our clients, public defenders are the best positioned out of all justice and safety agencies to help community members transition out of the criminal system for good. Yet we remain the most underfunded agency in the city's criminal legal system. The San Francisco Public Defender's Office receives about half the amount of funding compared to the District Attorney's Office. Public defenders receive six times less than the Sheriff's Department, and 14 times less than the San Francisco Police Department. This problem of overfunding law enforcement and drastically underfunding public defender offices is not unique to San Francisco. This is a national and long-standing issue that could change by diverting resources to our office where–for a fraction of the costs that the other justice agencies consume-big impact could be effectuated.
I have expanded the public defense budget in the last two budget cycles. Appropriately funding the Public Defender's Office will increase our capacity to better serve our clients and alleviate the burdensome caseloads our defenders carry to the detriment of their own well-being; enable us to implement recently passed state criminal justice reforms like the Racial Justice Act; and allow us to expand many of the innovative programs we created to heal the impact of system involvement for our clients and their families — such as early representation through our Pre-Trial Release Unit, connecting people to services through our Reentry Unit, and expanding our Clean Slate Program to help people expunge or seal their records to open up opportunities for jobs and housing. I plan to hire more social workers to expand access to services to our clients, many of whom live under precarious conditions. If re-elected I will continue to aggressively advocate for a bigger budget, as the need for strong public defense in our city is now more important than ever.
Policy
Now that we know where you align and differ from our vision for San Francisco, we'd like to get some details about how you intend to use your elected office to achieve your goals.
Why are you running for Public Defender?
I've given my heart and soul to defending San Franciscan's constitutional rights and have initiated many programs furthering criminal legal system reform in the city. Based on my record as a line deputy in court, Jeff Adachi promoted me to the Director of Training and then the Felony Manager prior to his passing. I have lectured state and nationwide on different aspects of public defender practice. I am seeking to be reelected as Public Defender to continue my commitment to fighting tooth & nail to zealously defend some of the most vulnerable members of our society because every wrongful conviction and prolonged detention impacts individuals, families, and subsequent generations. The last two budget cycles under my leadership have led to the biggest increases to our office's budget in the modern era. I plan to continue aggressively advocating for a bigger public defense budget, as the need for strong public defense is critical to the city's post-pandemic recovery. At this critical juncture, the Public Defender's Office is a powerful generator of criminal justice reform in the city. I have the vision, community support, and political will to lead my office in spearheading innovative new policies that promote healthy communities. As Public Defender, my record reflects my commitment to delivering the critical services necessary to achieve a healthier & more sustainable society. If re-elected I will continue to mobilize my office to connect with community-based organizations in order to provide our clients with the best services in the country so that they can succeed and contribute to the health and wellness of our city.
What is your #1 policy goal?
How will you build the coalition and political capital to enact your #1 goal?
Will the power of the office of Public Defender be enough to achieve this goal?
What are your #2 and #3 policy goals?
Will the power of the office of Public Defender be enough to achieve these goals?
What is an existing policy you would like to reform?
What is an "out there" change that you would make to SF / local government / policy, if you could? (For example: adding at-large supervisors, changing how elections work, creating a Bay Area regional government, etc.)
Personal
Tell us a bit about yourself!
Why did you become a defense attorney?
Why do you have an interest in being Public Defender?
What do you want to be remembered for, and why?
How long have you lived in San Francisco? What brought you here and what keeps you here?
What do you love most about San Francisco?
What do you dislike the most about San Francisco?
Tell us about your current involvement in the community (e.g., volunteer groups, neighborhood associations, civic and professional organizations, etc.)
Thank you
Thank you for giving us your time and answering our questionnaire. We look forward to reading your answers and considering your candidacy!
If you see any errors on this page, please let us know at contact@growsf.org.