If you had to pick, Which would be the one with the winning case???
Do the court appointed lawyers actually try to help you????
Why the drastic price drop???
Why can't you just represent yourself??? Just curious thanks...

I honestly think that would depend on the situation.

But the realistic view is that one is better of hiring a private attorney based on a contingency fee.  That is, you pay the lawyer only if you win the case.

With the court appointed attorneys, they are employed by federal government.  And you never know when you are assigned a court-appointed attorneys - it's like taking a risk - you could either get a good lawyer, or a bad lawyer.

Yes, I believe you can represent yourself, but I personally think if you are financially able, hire a private attorney.

...or just hope that there is a probono that is like Johnnie Cochran...

Here are the link references if you want to know more..

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-court-appointed-attorney.htm

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/312694/how_to_represent_yourself_in_courtpart.html?page=2&cat=17

Hope it helped!

The defendent who represents himself has a fool for an attorney.

On the other hand, I have represented myself in court on a few occasions, you can draw your own conclusions on that one I guess.  (Note however:  I won both times.)

A public defender may be OK, but that is not my first choice.  I you can at all afford your own attorney, I think that is the best choice.  It also matters how serious the case is.  You don't say what kind of case you are involved in.

Also note, contingency cases where you pay the attorney only if you win always involve civil suits where you are suing an individual, like in a person injury lawsuit if they injured you somehow.  That does not apply to criminal cases.

(still not a lawyer)

I've never heard of a lawyer taking a defendant's case on contingency, but I suppose anything is possible.

Usually, the contingency is where the plaintiff seeks monetary damages, and the lawyer will get a cut (usually 30-40%) of the money awarded.

the difference between working the system and armed robbery as you indicated in an earlier post.

If you had to pick, Which would be the one with the winning case??

Just as you would pick the most qualified professional in other fields if you had a choice, you ideally should interview and pick the best private attorney to represent you in a criminal case, rather than accept court appointed counsel who may be right out of law school or, even if an old timer, may be accepting appointments because he cannot get enough private clients which may mean he is not that good.

Note also that old timers with a heavy appointment practice who may be good attys nonetheless have huge case loads and cannot spend the amount of time on your case that privately retained counsel should.


Do the court appointed lawyers actually try to help you????
Absolutely, they are ethically bound to do so. Some of them ae quite good. But some are bad. See  the Texas death penalty cases where court appointed counsel fell asleep during the trial.

But bc  incompetence of counsel is grounds for setting aside a conviction, they generally try to meet at least this minimum standard as an incompetence finding is bad for business.



Why the drastic price drop???

That is easy. The state pays and in some jurisdictions they have not raised the pay for these guys in years. Remember that the Constitution requires the state to provide counsel, but not good counsel.


Why can't you just represent yourself??? Just curious thanks...

You have a constitutional right to do so in a criminal case but unless you are an attorney you cannot possibly know enough to handle the case properly.

The only time this is ever justified is in non-felony cases where at most you face a small fine or if say you are contesting a parking ticket.

Thanks amazingly enough I thought about it and decided that interviewing them first and making a judgment call  would be the way to go...Know just gotta figure out how to... heheh. Not the judging type but guess I gotta bring it out sometime... Thanks again for the comforting replies...

It depends on what state you are in.
In California, appointed counsel is often better than private counsel.  The reason for this is that appointed counsel, usually the PDs, are overseen by their office which consists of experienced and generally dedicated attorneys.  Also, they are matched to the cases and generally have a great deal of experience.

Private counsel can take any case they want, regardless of whether they are qualified or familiar with the particular area of law.

The big draw back is that the PD does not have the time to hold your hand and do the bed side manner thing.

You don't get to pick. You can only get a court-appointed lawyer if you are indigent, and you have to prove this to the judge--i.e. on food stamps, homeless, s.s.i. recipent, etc...  If you have money, or you can get money, or if you have a job, or can get a job,  you don't qualify.  If you're in jail, and can't afford bond, this also might be evidence of indigency, but even then you have to convince the judge of how poor you are.

Attorneys practicing in criminal courts are expected to handle both types of cases--court-appointed as well as  privately retained. When the judge orders the attorney to represent an indigent, he has to if he wants to continue practicing in that court.  It has nothing to do with how good an attorney is.  Some of the most heinous felonies have to be handled by attorneys who are court-appointed, because no one else wants the headache. And they are some of the best attorneys around.  

In cases where the attorney is privately retained, that attorney can fire you if they no longer want to work on your case--i.e. they can take your money, work a little on the case, and when you run out of money, they can say "adios" (and I've seen many lawyers do just that--but hey, at least then you can claim indigency).  Not so for court appointments--the judge must approve any withdrawal.

As for representing yourself, most judges won't allow it unless you can prove legal competency.  They don't want to see the case overturned on appeal because you were legally ineffective in representing yourself.

"As for representing yourself, most judges won't allow it unless you can prove legal competency.  They don't want to see the case overturned on appeal because you were legally ineffective in representing yourself."

         I do not believe a criminal defendant is required in the first instance to prove his mental competency to self represent. Mental competency of witnesses is presumed in all court systems and I think there is a similar presumption in the self representation context.

           Now it is true that mental competency to self represent is a higher standard that the mental competency needed to stand trial, but I think first of all the judge to has to make that determination by ordering a competency hearing. And in the absence of evidence showing incompetency, the presumption carries the day.

      In the absence of a defendant suffering from mental illness, I think it would be a rare case where a court would find the defendant lacks the mental capacity to self represent. You can be clueless about the law but still meet this standard. The post conviction relief standard of ineffective legal representation is an entirely different – and higher standard- than the mental capacity required to self represent.


But otherwise I agree with your statements.

Mental competency and legal competency are two different issues.  A competency hearing is only for mental competency--ie...mental illness.  Legal competency is a legal term of art.  You can be mentally competent, but fail to graduate the 8th Grade--that would make you  legally incompetent to try a case.  No judge is going to allow you to represent yourself if you can't read or write on an 8th Grade level--or even on a college level if you have no legal training.

Each case is fact specific, and of course a judge could allow anyone he wanted to to represent himself--but in the real world, that rarely happens.  There is no presumption of legal competence for non-attorneys--that's why we have attorneys who can be sued and disbarred and otherwise be sanctioned for legal incompetence--i.e. not knowing the rules of evidence and procedure. That's why a judge will not allow self-representation unless the non-attorney can prove he knows the law. Of course, this all only applies to criminal cases where jail-time is a possible outcome.  Class C misdemeanors, and civil cases are a different issue altogether--mainly because your freedom is not at stake in those types of cases.

“You can be mentally competent, but fail to graduate the 8th Grade--that would make you  legally incompetent to try a case.  No judge is going to allow you to represent yourself if you can't read or write on an 8th Grade level--or even on a college level if you have no legal training.”

This is where we disagree. The question is what mental capacity is needed to waive your right to counsel and self represent. The Supreme Court has ruled that legal knowledge is not relevant to this inquiry:


Here, weeks before trial, Faretta clearly and unequivocally
declared to the trial judge that he wanted to represent
himself and did not want counsel. The record
affirmatively shows that Faretta was literate, competent,
and understanding, and that he was voluntarily exercising
his informed free will. The trial judge had warned
Faretta that he thought it was a mistake not to accept
the assistance of counsel, and that Faretta would be
required to follow all the "ground rules" of trial procedure.
We need make no assessment of how well or
poorly Faretta had mastered the intricacies of the hearsay
rule and the California code provisions that govern
challenges of potential jurors on voir dire. For his
technical legal knowledge, as such, was not relevant to
an assessment of his knowing exercise of the right to
defend himself.

FARETTA v. CALIFORNIA, 422 U.S. 806 (1975)


And I’m not sure what you mean by “legal competency.” That is not the terminology used by the Supreme Court in addressing this issue:


We now turn to the question presented. We assume that a criminal defendant has sufficient mental competence to stand trial (i.e., thedefendant meets Dusky's standard) and that the defendant insists on representing himself during that trial. We ask whether the Constitution permits a State to limit that defendant's self-representati n right by
insisting upon representation by counsel at trial — on the ground that the defendant lacks the mental capacity to conduct his trial defense unless represented.

…
We consequently conclude that the Constitution permits judges to take realistic account of the particular defendant's mental capacities by asking whether a defendant who seeks to conduct his own defense at trial is mentally competent to do so. That is to say, the Constitution permits States to insist upon representation by counsel for those competent
enough to stand trial under Dusky but who still suffer from severe mental illness to the point where they are not competent to conduct trial proceedings by themselves.

INDIANA v. EDWARDS, 07-208 (U.S. 6-19-2008)


Education about the law is simply not required, although certainly it may be considered in assessing mental capacity to self represent. So I cannot agree that

"That's why a judge will not allow self-representation unless the non-attorney can prove he knows the law."



And finally I still think the state has to prove lack of mental capacity to self represent- there is no burden on the defendant here. But it’s an interesting question isn’t it?

Okay I'm going back to the Erotic Highway now...

I'm just telling you how it works in the real world.  In my county, judges are loathe to allow self-representation.  They will do everything they can to persuade, intimidate, or just bully you into having counsel.  I've seen maybe two cases in 20 years where self-representation was allowed, and even then the judge ordered an attorney to sit at the defense table to stand-by as informal counsel.

I guess justice varies from court to court, and from state to state, but most conscientious judges want to see justice done, and will do everything in their power to see that a fool gets justice, whether he deserves it or not. No judge wants to see his/her judgement reviewed by the Supreme Court, so they will do everything they can to err on the side of caution.  There's no telling but that the next defendant who complains to the Supreme Court that he shouldn't have been allowed to represent himself might not be more successful than the defendants in the cases you cited.  

The prosecution wants you to represent yourself.  They're not going to do a thing to prove you're incompetent to represent yourself--they relish having an opponent that doesn't know the game.

The trial of a case is analogous to a chess game.  Can you imagine a judge allowing a game between a chess master and a person who doesn't know the game--or even a wood-pusher? The judge  wants a fair game; the State just wants to win. You may have the right to curse the judge and demand that he allow you to play the game your way--however poorly--but if the judge is a good judge, he's going to brow-beat you into accepting advice from a player that knows the rules of the game and can get the best results based on the situation at hand.  At the least the judge can tell himself he did everything he could to see that justice was done.

Whew! Thanks for the feedback. See ya later.

(still not a lawyer)

who has not been discovered yet. But once I get that first part....

Depends on the state. In some states, including California, if a private attorney does not want to take a case on an appointed basis he does not have to, regardless of how often he practices criminal law in any particular court.

As for representing your self, if you are compentent in a psychological way, you have an absolute right to do so, regardless of your level of education or legal knowledge. Old case. Faretta v. California, U.S. Supreme Court. The most current case is if you are mentally deficient, even though you may be compentent enough to stand trial, the court can deny you the right to represent yourself.

I like to pay for my own legal guys. If a lawyer takes your case they have to "help" you. You can represent yourself if you have the skills. I don't know about pricing.

I like to pay for my own surgery guys.  If a surgion takes your case they have to "help" you.  You can perform self-surgery if you have the skills.  It sure is cheaper.

It's worthwhile noting that the quote "The defendent who represents himself has a fool for an attorney" was first said by an attorney.

That being said, I've had a number of legal problems in the last 20 years.  Every time I've hired an attorney, I've either lost, or eventually won but lost more in legal fees.  When I've represented myself, I've usually won.

All it really takes is a willingness to read the laws and cases (many of which are online) and figure out what to do and stand up straight and do it.

As for prostitution goes: the biggest mistake that everyone makes is TALKING.  Use your 5th amendment right to keep quiet.  If you do, they HAVE NO CASE!  All of the "evidence" is merely circumstantial and, by law, if there's a non-criminal reasonable explanation then you have to be found not guilty.

Oh, btw, I'm not a lawyer.  I merely beat them at their own game...