How Good is a Court-Appointed Lawyer?

[Nicoleasm]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? VA


Ok, So my sister is being charged with a felony(wounding charge) from a domestic dispute against her BF...and currently she is sitting in jail..we're trying to work out getting her a bond until her actual prelim. hearing in a month....But the courts have given her a lawyer. Right now, we(our family) don't have the money to hire a private lawyer...Mostly b/c my parents had to hire a family lawyer a week ago, to try to get custody of my sister's child...This pending charge against my sister was definitely in self-defense, and we have numerous witnesses that can testify on her behalf of what her BF has done to her for the past year...
Now we're worried about how well this court-appointed lawyer is going to iron out all the intricate details that are needed to defend my sister, and if he'll spend the x-tra time to make a really good case with the info we're giving him...Ive heard that if a person uses these types of lawyers, they almost always get a higher sentence b/c they don't do a good job...Does anyone have any input? have you had success with them or complete disasters?

And if anyone knows this...what's the difference b/t court-appointed lawyers and public defenders? I was trying to do some google searching and some sites say they are the same, and others say, they are different??What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?

[outonbail]

Originally Posted by Nicoleasm

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? VA


Ok, So my sister is being charged with a felony(wounding charge) from a domestic dispute against her BF...and currently she is sitting in jail..we're trying to work out getting her a bond until her actual prelim. hearing in a month....But the courts have given her a lawyer. Right now, we(our family) don't have the money to hire a private lawyer...Mostly b/c my parents had to hire a family lawyer a week ago, to try to get custody of my sister's child...This pending charge against my sister was definitely in self-defense, and we have numerous witnesses that can testify on her behalf of what her BF has done to her for the past year...
Now we're worried about how well this court-appointed lawyer is going to iron out all the intricate details that are needed to defend my sister, and if he'll spend the x-tra time to make a really good case with the info we're giving him...Ive heard that if a person uses these types of lawyers, they almost always get a higher sentence b/c they don't do a good job...Does anyone have any input? have you had success with them or complete disasters?

And if anyone knows this...what's the difference b/t court-appointed lawyers and public defenders? I was trying to do some google searching and some sites say they are the same, and others say, they are different??What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?

There are good public defenders and there are not so good public defenders.
The biggest problem that is encountered when going with a public defender, is that they are usually overloaded with cases, which makes it physically impossible for them to put a significant amount of time and effort into any single case.
The more complex a case is and the greater the degree of the crime charged, then the more I would recommend going with a private attorney.

However, there are certainly areas where a public defender would have an advantage over a private attorney and visa versa. One area would be knowing the idiosyncrasies of the judges they deal with. Since a public defender usually works in the same jurisdiction during their career as a public defender, they get to know which judges are harder on certain criminal cases and which judges have personal peeves, what those peeves are and how to deal with them.

Private attorneys on the other hand usually have more time available to put into a case and have other members in their staff who can do a lot of the paper work, like court filings, researching law and going through many of the "behind the scene" motions which can take a lot of time.

Now private attorneys can also milk a client by wasting a lot of time filing pointless motions because they are billing for every minute they spend on a case, so there is more motivation to put their time into a case, even if that time is not going to help.

The difference between public defenders and court appointed attorneys is that a public defender works directly for the public defender's office in the county they practice in. A court appointed attorney can have their own practice and if they have the time available, they also take cases from the state.
A court appointed attorney is commonly used when there may be a conflict of interest with the public defenders office and/or when there are two defendants charged with being involved in the same crime. Having two attorney's from the public defenders office can cause a conflict when one defendant starts pointing the finger at the other.

Where I live, I wouldn't recommend going with a public defender, but I don't know how swamped down with cases the public defenders are in your area.

Another way to view a public defender is this.

They are appointed to be legal representation, not necessarily to fight tooth and nail for your cause. If you want the best fight, it is going to cost money.