Another person who uses their own personal experiences to dictate how the world works. How surprising. You bitch about anecdotal situations then try to use your own to back up your point. "I know a lot of public defenders from my one internship at a single courthouse, THEREFORE I AM RIGHT AND YOU WILL ALWAYS BE WRONG." I don't care about your credentials and you shouldn't care about mine. Your argument is all that's relevant.
Many metro areas will undoubtedly have more funding for public defenders. Most rural areas and smaller counties will not. Many of those jurisdictions will have much higher conviction rates because of this and the sentencing will be harsher thanks to right wing judges and aggressive policing (as well as good old fashion racism). There areas are made worse when the county can profit off of their criminal justice system. They're not even scared to incarcerate children for petty charges.
Cases with indisputable evidence are tough fights, yes. That doesn't mean your attorney can't negotiate a plea to minimize the punishment. A public defender who's thrown 300 cases a year with minimal or zero assistance when it comes to research will not know your case as well as they ought to. This is the simple truth of the matter. What's worse is they don't have time to keep up with new state and federal laws as well as they should be able to. This can result in a PD throwing their client under the bus without even knowing it.
And your bolded part... Let's get to that. Your first source focused on murder convictions in a single jurisdiction. That sample size isn't indicative of the national average (especially when it focuses on murders). It should have also been a red flag to see that the court in that jurisdiction can only provide a public defender for one out of five murder cases. Man, everything must be gravy for our public defense system. Your second source is nearly 15 years old and uses data that's even older than that. The conviction rate has risen dramatically in that time, and the number of citizens sitting in prison has risen almost another half a million in that time alone. Even if we use your data you're viewing this from such an unrealistic position that you think the difference between a 50% conviction rate and a 70% conviction rate is "negligible". The increase in prison time for privately funded attorneys is almost certainly a result of losing a trial because they didn't plea out.
And AGAIN you give me a source that uses an insignificant sample size to make their point. Using a study from 2002 that used Denver as their sample is not a solid source. When the client speculates that the "guilty" don't care and simply give up, that's absurd. People will do what they can to avoid incarceration. And it seems the ones that can afford a private attorney have more to lose which makes his observation even stranger.
The laws have become more and more complex and incarceration levels have been growing exponentially for years. They've only plateaued recently because there isn't enough space anymore to continue growing our prison population. Many states now won't even send you to jail or prison if you're a first time (non-violent) offender. This is becoming truer and truer with possession charges as court ordered treatment and drug education has taken the place of jail time.
You've romanticized the justice system because you've only viewed it from one side. You don't seem to care about the people that are mistreated and villainized for petty offenses. You don't see the pain and stress inflicted on the defendant and their family, and the lasting damage criminal charges cause. You don't view them as people; you view them as criminals who need to be punished. It doesn't matter seem to matter to you that our justice system is inarguably broken.
Who cares that we have 22% of the world's prisoners even though we only account for 4.4% of the world's overall population. Who cares that one in three adults in this country have an arrest record. Who cares that our justice system overwhelming targets poor citizens and minorities. It just makes it easier to get criminal scum off the streets when we don't give them adequate legal representation. Must be real good to be naive.