OAKLAND — The leader of a program pairing low-income criminal defendants with free attorneys is out of her job, after a shortage of lawyers in Alameda County delayed prosecutions and left defendants languishing for weeks at the Santa Rita Jail.
Andrea Zambrana no longer leads the Court Appointed Attorneys Program, the Alameda County Bar Association’s leaders confirmed this week. The program, which is administered by the bar association, pays for private attorneys to represent defendants who cannot be represented by the Alameda County Public Defender’s Office due to conflicts of interest.
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The change was first announced in an internal email — obtained by this news organization — to several members of the program on Sept. 10. The bar association’s leaders did not say this week whether Zambrana was forced out, or if she left of her own accord.
Zambrana declined to comment to this news organization when reached via text.
Her former duties are expected to be split between three people. Longtime East Bay attorney Annie Beles — whose father was a founding member of the program — was named interim director and began working in that role within the past week. She will share leadership duties with Cynthia Chandler, the bar association’s chief operating officer, and Hadassah Hayashi, the association’s CEO.
The shakeup comes amid a monthslong shortage that left defendants waiting for weeks to get representation — prompting some defendants to openly complain to judges about the delays at their hearings, and at least one person to accept a jail sentence without first speaking to an attorney. The situation became so problematic that the ACLU of Northern California sent a letter to Alameda County Superior Court Presiding Judge Thomas Nixon earlier this year demanding changes, while decrying “a clear violation of constitutional rights, exacerbating the cycle of incarceration and injustice.”
In one case, a 48-year-old San Leandro man showed up to court four times from June 4 through July 8, only to be told to come back each time because the judge had no attorney for him, according to court documents. When he didn’t show up for a fifth hearing on July 14, a judge issued a $25,000 warrant for his arrest.
Another man in mid-July haggled with a prosecutor in open court over a potential jail sentence for an alleged probation violation, ultimately agreeing to a 90-day sentence without having first consulted with an attorney.
At its worst, the backlog of felony defendants at Santa Rita Jail waiting for attorneys exceeded 100 people, Chandler said Friday, while many others struggled to find representation while out of custody. That backlog has since been reduced to about 35 felony defendants, regardless of their custody status. No backlog remains for juvenile or misdemeanor cases, Chandler said.
Part of that shortage appears to have been addressed with direct appointments by judges from the bench — an uncommon practice that is often avoided over concerns of favoritism swaying those decisions. As of Thursday, between seven and 10 attorneys had been directly appointed by judges over the past two months, said Paul Rosynsky, an Alameda County Superior Court spokesperson.
In a statement, Beles said the moment called for “bold action.”
“Clients cannot wait, and our community cannot wait,” said Beles, who has stopped accepting new clients through the program while serving in her new role. “We are assigning cases, expanding the panel, and building the capacity needed to ensure every person has the excellent defense that CAAP attorneys provide.”
This week, program leaders announced a new campaign, called “Operation Clear the Backlog,” to finally fix the situation. It is working to expand the number of attorneys available to take cases, claiming at least a dozen new attorneys are currently being vetted for the program. At least 10 attorneys have already been added so far this year, Chandler said.
“We are proud of the progress made through the efforts of our staff and panel attorneys,” Hayashi said in a statement. “We are confident in our path forward as we move toward hiring a permanent CAAP director.”
Presiding Judge Nixon said he was “excited” to learn that the program had increased the number of attorneys in its fold. He also said Beles is “well known to the judges of Alameda County and we all wish her well in her new assignment.”
An attorney for more than 25 years, Beles often accepts some of the region’s most high-profile and complex criminal cases. The Oakland native has represented dozens of homicide defendants, including Mark Sanders, the lead defendant in the December 2023 shooting death of Oakland police officer Tuan Le; Lawrence Denard, the man convicted of killing 3-year-old Carlos Nava during a gang war in 2011; and Remon McDaniel, who was found guilty of the 2012 killing of Laney College student Isaac Jamal White.
Beles often says her law career began at the age of 15, doing “anything and everything… whatever was needed to support the office” of her father, attorney Robert Beles, according to her website.
“We sincerely hope that the experience and dedication she brings to CAAP will result in substantive improvement in the availability of qualified attorneys for timely appointment to those awaiting counsel,” Nixon said.
Jakob Rodgers is a senior breaking news reporter. Call, text or send him an encrypted message via Signal at 510-390-2351, or email him at [email protected].