Does the city attorney have any grounds to prevent the public defender from obtaining the records of a police officer?

We are unpersuaded. As the city attorney reasons, petitioner's argument fails to identify any impediment to the public defender's ability to represent him. Moreover, trial courts have broad discretion in ruling on motions to discover police personnel records and, in doing so, as we have discussed, they are implementing a careful balancing process between the directly conflicting, substantial interests of the officer and the defendant. (People v. Samayoa (1997) 15 Cal.4th 795, 827, 64 Cal. Rptr.2d 400, 938 P.2d 2; People v. Jackson (1996) 13 Cal.4th 1164, 1220, 56 Cal. Rptr.2d 49, 920 P.2d 1254.) Arguably, this specific statutory judicial obligation supersedes a public defender's office's general rules concerning distribution of authority to deputies or attribution to all deputies of knowledge gained by any one of them.