CA: from cop to p.d.

Ex-cop, now public defender, draws ire

By most measures, Deputy Public Defender Ed Obayashi has had an unusual career path. For more than 15 years he was a beat cop with the San Diego Police Department. Then he went to law school, earned his degree and entered practice.

What's unusual is the type of law he chose, and for whom he works. Obayashi is a criminal defense lawyer with the county Public Defender's Office...

That career path has drawn the ire of some of his former colleagues, and those feelings surfaced in December when a lawyer who represents the San Diego Police Officers Association... wrote a barbed commentary in “The Informant,” the union's monthly publication...