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Comparisons of conviction rates both in federal courts and in criminal cases that are tried in the most populous counties of the United States are statistically the same regardless of whether a public or a private defense attorney as representing the defendant (Siegel 2009; Gaines & Miller 2011). This initially suggests that there is not a great deal of difference in the selection of an attorney when it comes to the outcome of the case: prosecutors do not tend to focus resources on cases they are not fairly confident they can win, and thus the vast majority of criminal cases (ninety percent of federal cases and approximately seventy-five percent of cases in the most populous counties) result in guilty verdicts with the type of attorney having no discernible effect (Siegel 2009). This does not mean that differences don't exist, however. Though conviction rates are the same for public and private defense attorneys, research has also shown that defendants...
At the same time, prison sentences for those that retained private counsel tend to be longer when they are handed down, meaning that people with public defenders are more likely to go to prison in the first place than defendants with hired counsel, but they are in a statistically better position to receive shorter stays there (Siegel 2009).
Ultimately the decision to go with public or private counsel is generally made by circumstance. A judge can require a defendant to hire their own attorney if they are believed to have the resources to do so. This information should still be useful to any defendant and any criminal justice worker, though.
References
Gaines, L. & Miller, R. (2011). Criminal Justice in Action. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Siegel, L. (2009). Introduction to Criminal Justice. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
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