The impact of legal representation on disposition and sentencing
Abstract
With the expansion of the right to legal counsel and the states' need to provide legal counsel, public defenders came to be viewed with suspicion and mistrust. The widely shared image by the public was that lawyers who became public defenders were those unable to succeed in the private sector. Very few studies had examined the legal outcome and efficiency of public versus private legal defense. The county in which this study took place had no public defenders, so court appointed attorneys versus privately retained attorneys were analyzed. A comparison was conducted on the sentencing outcomes for those defendants with court appointed attorneys and those with privately retained attorneys. The focus was whether court appointed attorneys able to obtain similar sentences for indigent defendants when compared with privately retained attorneys. The purpose the study was to examine the impact of legal representation on the disposition and sentencing of defendants. The results of the study showed that the type of legal representation had no effect on the disposition and sentencing of defendants.
Subject Area
Law|Criminology
Recommended Citation
Carter, William D, "The impact of legal representation on disposition and sentencing" (2009). ETD Collection for Fayetteville State University. AAI1484510.
https://digitalcommons.uncfsu.edu/dissertations/AAI1484510