James M. Anderson and Paul Heaton, "How Much Difference Does the Lawyer Make?"

Available at RAND and forthcoming in the Yale Law Journal. Abstract:

One in five indigent murder defendants in Philadelphia are randomly assigned representation by public defenders while the remainder receive court-appointed private attorneys. The authors exploit this random assignment to measure how defense counsel affect murder case outcomes. Compared to appointed counsel, public defenders in Philadelphia reduce their clients' murder conviction rate by 19% and lower the probability that their clients receive a life sentence by 62%. Public defenders reduce overall expected time served in prison by 24%. They find no difference in the overall number of charges of which defendants are found guilty. When they apply methods used in past studies of the effect of counsel that did not use random assignment, they obtain far more modest estimated impacts, which suggests defendant sorting is an important confounder affecting past research. To understand possible explanations for the disparity in outcomes, they interviewed judges, public defenders, and attorneys who took appointments. Interviewees identified a variety of institutional factors in Philadelphia that decreased the likelihood that appointed counsel would prepare cases as well as the public defenders. The vast difference in outcomes for defendants assigned different counsel types raises important questions about the adequacy and fairness of the criminal justice system.

Comments

[Rick Underwood]

In Kentucky I have reason to believe that the Public Advocates do a better job in death penalty, and maybe, I am not so sure, some major felony cases. They seem to have a pretty good training program - at least they did when Allison Connelly was in charge. However, this may be a two edged sword, since many competent (and some not so?) private attorneys steer away from cases when they won't make any money, and will be subjected to never ending attack by the Public Advocates on collateral review. In other words, this is something that deserves study. Does anyone have a take on this? It's not my professional cup of tea, but something I try to keep up with (I am an expert on Taking by State Beaver cases - I am not making this up - also Bob Dylan and the Law).

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