Some Stats on Indigent Defense...

In case you were wondering, here are the Bureau of Justice Statistics's Indigent Defense Statistics. Interesting stuff...

Here is what I found most interesting:
Publicly financed counsel represented about 66% of Federal felony defendants in 1998 as well as 82% of felony defendants in the 75 most populous counties in 1996.

Conviction rates for indigent defendants and those with their own lawyers were about the same in Federal and States courts. About 90% of the Federal defendants and 75% of the defendants in the most populous counties were found guilty regardless of the type of their attorneys.

Of those found guilty, however, those represented by publicly financed attorneys were incarcerated at a higher rate than those defendants who paid for their own legal representation 88 percent compared to 77% in Federal courts and 71% compared to 54% in the most populous counties.

But...on average, sentence lengths for defendants sent to jail or prison were shorter for those with publicly-financed attorneys than those who hired counsel. In Federal district court those with publicly financed attorneys were given just under 5 years on average and those with private attorneys just over 5 years. In large State courts those with publicly financed attorneys were sentenced to an average of 2½ years and those with private attorneys to 3 years.

While 69% of white State prison inmates reported they had lawyers appointed by the court, 77% of blacks and 73% of Hispanics had publicly financed attorneys. In Federal prison black inmates were more likely than whites and Hispanics to have public counsel 65% for blacks, 57% for whites and 56% for Hispanics.