Hello, my name is Chris Morales and I’m a criminal defense attorney in San Francisco, California and today I want to talk about when you should or should not use the Public Defender’s office. First let’s talk about the Public Defender’s offices.They are set up to represent poor people. People who do not have the funds to hire a private attorney. The United States Constitution says that everybody should get an attorney if they charged with a crime. So that’ why we have a public defender’s offices they are funded by the counties and sometimes
by the state. As you probably know by now Public Defenders are very nice people very sincere, but they are usually over worked and underpaid. Usually have very high volumes of cases and handling lots and lots of cases. So, if you do choose to use the Public Defender you are not going to get a lot of personal attention you may not even sit down in an office and talk to your Public Defender. They may be too busy to actually sit and have a conversation with you. Many times you will just meet them in court outside in the hallway minutes before your
case is called. So, if you are going to use the Public Defenders you have to be very proactive call them not everyday, but once in a while to say hello to see if you can have a sit down interview with them. You want to get them all of your employment records, character reference letters you have to do a lot things on your own cause they don’t have time to do all the small things that go into defending a criminal case. So you will have to take care of those things yourself. If, you can afford to hire a private attorney a good private attorney it’s always better
because you can rest assure that all the little things are going to be done and get the best possible defense. Now there are times where you should use the Public Defenders if you qualify that is if you have asked around and talked to a bunch of people and the assigned Public Defender, the one that you have gets very high ratings from everybody else. If you have a really good one and you qualify for the public defenders you should stick with that public defender. The second time you should stick with a public defenders office is if you have a very complex
murder case. So a murder cases cost a lot of money if you are going to hire a private attorney and it can cost anywhere from 50-100 thousand dollars. Not everybody has the sufficient funds to hire a good attorney, a good private attorney to handle a murder case. So, if you have a complex murder case and you qualify for the public defenders the chances are that the best attorneys in that public defender office will be assigned to that murder case. That is the way it works as attorneys work their way up through the public defenders
office the best attorneys and highest qualified attorneys end up with the juicer cases, which are usually the murder cases. So those are the two situations where you should use a public defender in a criminal case if you qualify. For more information about criminal defense and about public defenders please visit my website at www.sfcriminallawspecialist.com you can also call me at (415) 552-1215 and please follow me on Facebook and Twitter.
When to use the Public Defender’s Office
Criminal Defense Attorney – Christopher Morales
Practice Area: The San Francisco Bay Area, California
Call us today for a free consultation (415) 552-1215 (Se Habla Español)
Website: www.sfcriminallawspecialist.com
