In an earlier article, The Chronicle claimed that open-air drug sales in San Francisco had sparked a “real estate boom” in Honduras as a result of migrants returning home with large sums of money and constructing “[h]andsome new homes, some mansions by local standards, some mansions by any standard.” (Photo: Getty Images)
After the San Francisco Chronicle reported that some drug dealers in the city earn up to $350,000 annually, a fight has broken out in San Francisco.
Matt Dorsey, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, has requested that City Hall look into the city’s judicial system following news that some drug dealers earn more than $350,000 a year yet are still entitled to legal representation from the Public Defender’s Office.
Over 20,000 poor and impoverished persons receive excellent representation from the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office every year, the office boasted. “Dorsey’s investigation alone is an insult to the due process legal protections outlined in the U.S. Constitution and a waste of taxpayer resources.”
In a tweet on Tuesday, Dorsey asked, “Do street-level drug dealers in San Francisco receive taxpayer-funded legal services to defend their criminal cases? They can make up to $350,000 a year, or even more if they help run a local operation.”
The 6th Amendment and the S.F. Charter guarantee free legal representation to those who cannot afford it.
Yes, ALL indigent defendants should receive publicly financed legal representation even drug dealers, but shouldn’t this be limited to ONLY indigent defendants? Dorsey further argued.
In response from the rising crisis due to drug dealers, Dorsey received criticism from the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office for raising awareness of the problem in a press release on Tuesday.
In San Francisco, do low-level drug dealers who “can make as much as $350,000 a year — or even more if they help run a local operation” have their criminal defense costs covered by tax dollars? (Photo: Twitter)
According to the Chronicle, Dorsey has also asked the budget analyst to look into the Public Defender’s Office’s recent fentanyl instances in particular.
According to earlier reports from the site, open-air drug trafficking in San Francisco has caused a “real estate boom” in Honduras as some migrants bring thousands of dollars back home and construct “handsome new homes, some mansions by local standards, some mansions by any standard.”
According to the Chronicle, some of these houses “rise behind bespoke iron gates emblazoned with San Francisco 49ers or Golden State Warriors logos.”
