Sacramento County DAs, defenders will walk off their jobs after labor talks stall. When is strike?
Sacramento County’s criminal attorneys will go on strike Aug. 26 after months-long talks over a new contract slowed to a standstill.
Nearly 300 of the county’s deputy district attorneys and public defenders are expected to walk off their jobs that day. The attorneys, about 150 criminal prosecutors, 100 deputy public defenders and lawyers in child support services, have been working without a contract since their last contract ended in 2022.
Leaders of the Sacramento County Attorneys’ Association, the union that represents the public sector attorneys, formally handed in their strike notice to Sacramento County officials 4:30 p.m. Thursday, said Quoc To, a senior attorney in the Sacramento County Public Defender’s office and union leader.
Member attorneys overwhelmingly voted for a work stoppage — 94% said yes to walking the picket line, To said.
Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho supported the attorneys’ demands for pay increases.
“I am in full support of prosecutors and public defenders receiving fair market salaries for their hard work and dedication to the Sacramento community. Our prosecutors have consistently demonstrated their commitment to victims, the criminal justice system, and public safety,” Ho said in a statement Friday.
Ho is a veteran Sacramento prosecutor with numerous cases on his resume including the notorious Golden State Killer/East Area Rapist case.
“Year after year, attorneys from both sides of the courtroom are expected to do more with less, and they have always risen to the occasion,” Ho said. “Sacramento is recognized as having the finest prosecutors and public defenders in the state.”
Sacramento County officials, in a one-sentence statement, expressed “deep disappointment” in news of a pending strike.
“Sacramento County expresses its appreciation for the dedication and hard work of its attorneys while conveying deep disappointment with the union’s intention to strike and unwillingness to discuss a successor agreement,” the statement read.
How will courts be affected?
The planned walkout of hundreds of lawyers at one of California’s busiest courts will likely mean numerous delays of court hearings and other matters. Union leader To said contingencies are in place to keep court operations moving.
Attorneys engaged in jury trials and preliminary hearings — hearings to determine whether cases move to trial — will stay on the job. Lawyers assigned to state hospital and other conservatorship cases will also continue to work. Attorneys will also continue to staff juvenile court hearings, To said.
The attorneys have asked for 5.5% pay raises at minimum, plus retroactive pay to make up for months lost in approving an earlier contract. They argued the pay bump is needed to keep up with Sacramento’s cost of living and to keep experienced attorneys in their offices and courtrooms.
Sacramento County officials say the two sides had come to accord on an agreement through June 2025 that included “significant increases in compensation” ranging from 14% - 15%, and raises in back pay. The county says the attorneys want a 5.5% pay hike on top of those increases. The county also challenged the union on its claims of low staffing, saying the offices’ vacancy levels were far lower than the county’s overall rate.
Low pay, the attorneys said, had turned their overworked DA’s and public defenders’ offices into revolving doors, with mid-level and senior attorneys fleeing to neighboring counties with higher pay and lighter caseloads, leaving work to less experienced lawyers.
Sacramento County prosecutors filed nearly 11,000 felony cases in 2023, among the highest filing rates in the state and comparable to larger counties including Riverside and San Bernardino. The office is the second-largest in Northern California, trailing Santa Clara County. Union leaders say just 7% of its prosecutors have 11 to 15 years experience.
Union leaders said the gap will soon become unsustainable with the offices unable to properly represent their clients.
“The bottleneck is we don’t have enough attorneys — experienced ones — on both sides to be churning these cases out at the levels that we used to because of the attrition,” union president Matt Chisholm, a lead trial attorney in the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office, said last week.
An independent mediator had sided with the union on the proposed pay hikes and its concerns over turnover, but Sacramento County mediators weren’t convinced, saying their good faith bargaining efforts were met by unyielding wage demands from the attorneys.
This story was originally published August 16, 2024 at 12:54 PM.
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