San Mateo County, California

How a case moves here

San Mateo County follows California law on arrests, release, and courts. These rules are the same in every county in the state; the full set covers prosecutors, defense, and jails too.

Who decides release first: The superior court judges in each county adopt a bail schedule every year, and the jail, police, or court clerk can accept bail under it and release the person without a judge. A duty judge or commissioner can raise bail on an officer's sworn request, and a judge sets release at arraignment.
Cal. Penal Code 1269b Cal. Penal Code 1270.1
Time to see a judge: An arrested person must be taken before a judge without unnecessary delay and within 48 hours, not counting Sundays and holidays.
Cal. Penal Code 825
Money bail: Money bail and county schedules remain, but in In re Humphrey (2021) the California Supreme Court held that a court setting money bail must consider the person's ability to pay and may not hold someone only because they can't afford it.
In re Humphrey (2021) 11 Cal.5th 135, S247278 Cal. Penal Code 1269b
Courts: California has one trial court, the superior court, in each county. It hears all criminal cases, felonies and misdemeanors alike.
Cal. Const. art. VI, sec. 4
Judges and magistrates: County voters elect superior court judges on a nonpartisan ballot to six-year terms. The governor appoints a judge to fill a vacancy until an elected judge's term begins.
Cal. Const. art. VI, sec. 16 Cal. Const. art. II, sec. 6

Read from the statutes and court rules cited, 2026-09-30. Which counties run jails through a department of corrections, and which counties have a public defender office, were not listed here. Los Angeles has used pre-arraignment release protocols with no money bail for most arrests since 2023 (see the bail-setters research note); not re-checked.

What this county does differently

Pretrial practice: The Judicial Council funds a court pretrial release program here, run with a county agency (usually probation), which uses the Virginia Pretrial Risk Assessment Instrument (VPRAI), and the county's superior court judges adopt a countywide bail schedule each year.
Judicial Council of California, Pretrial Release Program: Year 3 Report to the Legislature, Appendix B (April 2025, data for July 2023 to June 2024)Cal. Penal Code § 1269b(c)

Police agencies

Agencies: FBI NIBRS master file 2025 batch headers; names from the FBI agency list, pulled 2026-09-29. An agency that serves several counties appears on each. Population served is the FBI's figure.

Crime and arrests

No figures yet

Reported offenses and arrests for San Mateo County, counted by the agencies that serve it, appear here once the county series is published. NIBRS reporting here started as early as June 2021.