Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

The public defender can give you items out of the file. Not sure what the real question is here.

Ask the public defender. There is certainly no law against using the mail.

Not exactly. If you were representing yourself, you would have received what is known as a "redacted" police report. Penal Code section 1054.2 prohibits disclosure to a defendant the address or telephone number of a victim or witness. That information would have been disclosed to the public defender, but he or she is required to redact that information from the police report when giving you a copy.