The Gideon case required the state providing public defenders. A prisoner was convicted for theft, but received no counsel during the case. From prison he wrote a letter to the Supreme Court which took sympathy and require that he be given a lawyer at state expense and the case retried. He was acquitted. Now all criminal defendants must be given a lawyer at state expense, if the defendent requests one.
To paraphrase a key point in the ATC story, "A lawyer assigned as a public defender for a capital case is paid $2500. Considering that such a case typically requires 500 to 1000 hours, this works out to around $2.50 an hour." Another case was described where a lawyer was provided, but proved ineffective as he was frequently drunk or absent from court. When the verdict (defendent lost) was appealed to the Supreme Court, said court upheld the conviction basically saying that he had a warm body with a law degree and that was enough to satisfy the requirements.
Question: public defenders are generally seen as impotent, so what should
be done?
My opinion: let defendants demand and get a new public defender during
the case (no restart), and said defender should be paid on par with similar
privately-funded cases.
Each defendent has the option of firing his lawyer. It's the defendant that's on trial; the lawyer just provides advice and is hired to speak for the defendant. He should have the option of demanding a new lawyer. A new lawyer does not, however, require that the case be restarted; hence the cost to the state does not change, and the defendent cannot use the change to buy time (save requesting a slight delay for new-lawyer catchup) or play games. He also has the option of not accepting a new lawyer and defending himself, as a law library is at public disposal and he can learn what is necessary (not easy, but "your freedom is on the line; get cracking!").
This still does not address the issue of incompetent or unmotivated lawyers. The state (i.e. the people of the state via their representatives) should, in the interest of fairness and "innocent until proven guilty", choose to determine the typical cost of the type of case in question, and pay the assigned defender accordingly. $2500 is not a fair price to expect a quality defense on a murder rap. Since the payment is coded in law, and most fixed amounts specified in laws suffer badly under inflation and poor choice, lawmakers should develop such points of laws differently.