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Initial teleconference with site to collect information about site's project, describe TTA role, and plan for future meetings. Ongoing communication and planning through email.

In February, NLADA conducted its initial site visit to Alameda County. During the site visit, NLADA met with practitioners and researchers on the Smart Defense Alameda site team, as well other defender staff, a potential subject matter expert, a community group, court administrators, pretrial services staff, and judges. At the same time as Smart Defense Alameda is beginning to have defenders represent clients at first appearance, the Alameda County court system is being restructured at the request of a newly installed presiding judge. This restructuring was an important issue to explore during the site visit, since the proposed changes included moving some bail hearings to courthouses that are considerably farther away from the jail and/or mass transit access. Another factor to examine was the recent introduction of a new risk and needs assessment tool that is being implemented by county pretrial services staff. Before the site visit, NLADA spoke with pretrial services staff to learn how the tool was designed and is being implemented. Finally, Alameda County defenders are working on restructuring their own practice towards “vertical representation” (where the same attorney represents a client throughout a case). NLADA investigated all of these developments during its site visit so it could best advise the Smart Defense team about how to structure its new pretrial practice and research. NLADA also observed court and client interviews to learn how arraignments are currently handled.

The Alameda County Public Defender has since been having defenders at first appearance. Preliminary research indicates that more defendants are being released from jail, and sooner. Especially through its monthly TA calls, NLADA has continued to check in on the defenders’ progress (for example, certain judges have become unexpected allies of the project) and advise the researchers on what data would be most valuable for other jurisdictions looking to learn from this model. The Smart Defense Inter-Site Summit, on May 23 in Washington, DC, was another opportunity to meet with the site team and connect them with their peers. NLADA also showcased Smart Defense Alameda County at its summer conferences.
NLADA has explored how “participatory defense” can be incorporated into Alameda County’s new practice model. NLADA recommended and engaged the national leader in this area, Silicon Valley De-Bug, as a subject matter expert to work with the Public Defender Office. De-Bug’s work forges connections between defenders, their clients’ friends and families, and their broader communities, so that community members can take more ownership of their local criminal justice system and provide valuable assistance with investigation in individual cases. For Smart Defense Alameda County, De-Bug will develop two projects. First, it will partner with a local community organization to craft and broadly distribute materials that inform individuals what to do in the 24 hours following arrest and jailing of a loved one or friend. Second, it will develop a video exploring the impact of having attorneys beside their clients at initial appearance.

NLADA also arranged for the project research partner, Impact Justice, to receive supplemental funding from BJA to support the research component. The funds will allow the project team to update its logic model to reflect the unanticipated justice system changes and expand the scope of research.

Smart Defense grantee the Alameda County Public Defender Office continued its initiative of providing public defenders to represent clients at their first court appearance, something it was not able to do prior to receipt of the grant. As reported in the project team’s presentation at the September Smart Suite Summit, preliminary research indicates that more defendants are being released from jail, and sooner, because of the intervention. In monthly TA calls with research partner Impact Justice and the Alameda County Public Defender, NLADA/NCJA discussed messaging options for research findings from the project. Ongoing communication and planning was conducted through email and phone.

NLADA and NCJA conducted ongoing monthly calls to Alameda in January through June (2017). These calls were hampered by poor site attendance and frequent re-scheduling requests due to poor attendance. These site attendance challenges were likely caused by and contributed to a lack of commitment by old site team, and a lack of awareness by new site team working on the project. Calls during this reporting period provided an opportunity for NLADA to address the project team turnover for both practitioners and researchers; the flawed county data system roll-out, which compromised project data; and insufficient grant funding to achieve researcher success. After consulting with the site team, NLADA set up TA call with site team and Smart Suite Fellows Academy TTA team, BJA-funded experts on practitioner-researcher collaboration for Smart Suite projects; spoke with the defender team members about expectations for their researcher partnership; moved up site visit 3 months to address urgent issues in data collection and analysis (especially as evidenced by Inter-site Summit); is considering inviting an expert from Fellows Academy to join the planned site visit; has looped in chief defender to the project; and plans to loop in public defender IT person during the planned site visit to help the site to overcome this challenge. As with the other Smart Defense project site visits, the visit put the project in much sharper focus, allowing NLADA to support and message about its advances more effectively. NLADA and NCJA provided ongoing communication and planning through phone and email.
Moving forward, the TTA team will support Alameda by conducting a thorough site visit in August (2017) to help reset the project and to create a structured plan for all parties moving forward.

NLADA training and technical assistance (TTA) providers conducted the second of two routine site visits to Alameda County, California in early August 2017, and found a recent change in court processing threatening to derail gains made the Public Defender Office's (PDO) Innovative Solutions in Public Defense project.
At the direction of the Alameda County Presiding Judge, in July 2017 all arraignments were centralized and held in the newly opened East County Hall of Justice, located in Dublin, a suburban town 23 miles from Oakland. Previously arraignments were held at one of several county courthouses; whichever was closest to the inciting arrest. By far most arraignments of PDO clients occurred in Oakland at the Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse. The new East County court was first designed by the California Judicial Council in the 1990s, but the lengthy approvals and building process was only completed in 2017. As soon as centralized arraignments began, it became apparent the court lacked proper specifications to effectively handle the large volume of cases.
Difficulties from the Public Defender Office's perspective included a lack of adequate private meeting space for attorneys to interview clients before arraignment, delay getting initial discovery from the District Attorney's office across town, and difficulty even producing clients at the court by the Sheriff. These system challenges affected the ability of the PDO to represent clients at their first appearance, and a number of defendants had to proceed without benefit of counsel. After having the dubious distinction of being the only one of California's largest counties that did not provide counsel at arraignment, the sole focus of the Alameda County PDO's Innovative Solutions project is to provide public defender representation to clients at arraignment, and to document the effect of that representation. The court reorganization directly threatened that initiative.
Public Defender Brendon Woods spearheaded a community campaign to call attention to the issues and to urge the Presiding Judge to return Oakland arraignments to the Oakland courthouse. A key point in rallying the community was the inaccessibility of the Dublin court to family members, friends and loved ones of public defender clients, most of whom are from the Oakland area. Eventually, the campaign paid off. As of September 25, felony arraignments were returned to Oakland, greatly easing the difficulties plaguing the East County court. While misdemeanor arraignments still remain there, far fewer misdemeanor than felony clients are detained, and clients can visit the PDO at its Oakland office.
NLADA's site visit allowed the TTA team to see first-hand how changes in arraignment location contributed to disorganization and miscommunication among criminal justice stakeholders in the area. The project team attributes these challenges to a lack of collaboration and discussion among state and county court officials, and other justice system stakeholders, during the change's planning process. Notably, Alameda County does not have a criminal justice coordinating committee.
The site visit also brought the TTA and project teams together in-person to review recent research advances. The PDO received a one-year, no-cost extension on its grant from BJA. As the project enters its third year, significant challenges have been identified, addressed, and overcome. Thanks in large part to a strong partnership with research partner Impact Justice, the project is positioned to finish with ample information and evidence to support the case for representation at arraignment.
During this reporting period, NLADA and NCJA focused much of their efforts on supporting the site during a time of transition after arraignments were displaced from Oakland to Dublin, presenting significant hardship for both the public defender’s office as well as the clients and communities served. The county's decision to move misdemeanor arraignments to the new courthouse in Dublin created problems for the accused, their family members, defenders, corrections officers, and the courts themselves. The courthouse's remote location and poor design are at the heart of these difficulties. Dublin staff were sluggish in giving discovery to the ACPDO. NLADA staff including Jo-Ann Wallace, President and CEO, provided technical assistance and advice to Brendon Woods, the Alameda County Public Defender, to brainstorm solutions and responsive actions that would yield a net positive result. After significant negotiation and delay, felony arraignments were returned to the Oakland courthouse.
Also during this reporting period NLADA helped ACPDO to connect with Silicon Valley De-bug to discuss potential ongoing partnership opportunities and to develop a sustainability plan for the work completed through the BJA grant.

Brendon Woods delivered a successful presentation highlighting Alameda County's Innovative Solutions work at the 2017 NLADA Annual Conference in Washington, DC.

During this reporting period the NLADA/NCJA training and technical assistance (TTA) team held regular check in calls with Innovative Solutions grantee, the Alameda County Public Defender Office's (PDO), and its research partner, Impact Justice, to provide advice, feedback and encouragement for project progress.
In this period, the TTA team provided support for the PDO as it prepared for a remote monitoring visit by BJA. It also advised the PDO to seek a slightly extended no cost extension that runs until December 2018 to ensure time for successful project closeout. (The key point person at the PDO will be on maternity leave in summer 2018. Her involvement is critical to completing the final report, so the extension of time will accommodate that.)
As for project progress, court reorganization in Alameda County in the second half of 2017 caused a great deal of disruption to the project. In early 2018 court reorganization issues were resolved and the PDO pressed forward with its Innovative Solutions initiative. The project involves studying the effect of staffing PDO clients’ initial court appearance (arraignment) with public defenders to advocate for them, which had not been the practice prior to the grant project. Efforts in the first half of 2018 have focused on cleaning project data relating to the intervention, both at the PDO and at Impact Research, and securing comparison data from the County, Court and Public Defender data systems.
Also during this period, the Subject Matter Expert NLADA engaged on behalf of the PDO, De-Bug Silicon Valley, completed its First 24 community outreach materials.
Preliminary findings from the study show that five times more clients are released pre-trial at arraignment when they have public defender representation compared to when they do not. Before the intervention, two percent of all clients were released on bond (money or personal recognizance) at arraignment. Preliminary data from the study is looking like ten percent of clients are released on bond when public defenders can advocate for them. Research will explore differences among demographic groups. The PDO expects to conclude its project by year’s end.

During this reporting period the NLADA/NCJA training and technical assistance (TTA) team held its final check-in call with Innovative Solutions grantee, the Alameda County Public Defender Office's (PDO), and its research partner, Impact Justice, to provide advice, feedback and encouragement for project progress. With the PDO Project Lead preparing to go out on maternity leave, discussion centered around readiness of the PDO and Impact Justice to complete the final report. The project team wrapped up grant work September 30, 2018, and finalized its close out report in December 2018. Between August and December, NLADA remained in touch with the Project Lead to answer questions about final report formatting and to review the draft report. Among the key findings from the project: twenty percent of felony clients who had public defender representation at arraignment were released at arraignment rather than detained pre-trial, compared with fewer than one percent in the comparison group who appeared without counsel at arraignment. The researchers calculated that through the Innovative Solutions intervention of providing public defender counsel at arraignment, the County averted a cumulative 2,974 days of incarceration of defendants who would otherwise have been detained, which translated into over $422,308 in savings per year.