CHSS Distinguished Alumni - Philosophy

Jessica Sutterley is a deputy district attorney V, working for the San Diego District Attorney’s Office.  For 15 years, she has dedicated her career to trying cases of our most vulnerable victims.  Her experience is reflected in her extensive work trying misdemeanor and felony cases (fifty-one jury trials total), which have progressively increased in complexity. Notably, she has successfully tried seven murder cases, achieving verdicts for either first- or second-degree murder in all of them. Her trial experience includes handling some of the most complex murder issues, such as circumstantial identity, implied malice aiding and abetting scenarios, parental failure to protect liability, infant abusive head trauma, and multiple self-defense murder cases, along with the related legal doctrines that accompany them, such as initial aggressor and contrived self-defense. Eight of those years have been in the Family Protection Unit, which focuses on intimate partner violence, child abuse, and child molestation.  

Sutterley trains extensively for her community, educating law enforcement and young attorneys.  She regularly conducts training on complex legal topics, including homicide self-defense, assaults with deadly weapons, preventing errors in closing arguments, and juvenile petitions. She trains for the California Deputy District Attorney Association, San Diego County law enforcement, and in-house training sessions. Additionally, she led and moderated the in-house criminal discovery seminar and New Deputy Training Program for the San Diego District Attorney’s Office. She has also taught at the Felony Trial Advocacy, Homicide Training, and Trial Skills Academy.  

Alongside her teaching responsibilities, she had the privilege of leading teams within the office in multiple capacities. She served as a misdemeanor team leader in family protection for one year, a felony trial team leader in superior court for five years and currently holds the position of assistant chief in family protection—the second largest unit within the district attorneys’ office, comprising 43 attorneys, and the unit tasked with protecting our most vulnerable victims of domestic violence, elder abuse, child abuse, and child molestation.  She was also the deputy assigned by the District Attorney Summer Stephan to spearhead the state’s first-ever Hospital Violence Task Force in 2023, creating a multidisciplinary team with local hospitals to address countywide concerns about hospital violence.  The success of this task force led to District Attorney Summer Stephan receiving the Scripps Director’s Award in 2025.