Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Re: being appointed private counsel

Probably not. Attorneys and clients disagree about things all the time, and that is grounds to replace the lawyer only in the most extreme situations. Even then, the replacement would usually be another attorney from the public defender's office.

The type of conflict that would require a P.D. to stop representing a client is a conflict of interests, not an interpersonal conflict or a disagreement about strategy. Usually, a conflict of interests arises where some of the lawyer's duties to the client are inconsistent with his duties to another client the P.D.'s office represents. For example, if a witness who testifies against you is represented by the P.D. in another case, your lawyer's duty to challenge the witness's credibility (or at least to make an unbiased decision not to do so) on your behalf would conflict with his duty of loyalty to the witness/client.

I'm not sure what you mean by a conflict with the state, but I don't see why such a conflict would pose a problem for the public defender. The P.D. is employed by the county, not by the state. Besides, by definition a criminal case is a dispute between the defendant and the state; if such a conflict disqualified the public defender there would be no point having P.D.s at all.

Re: being appointed private counsel

One could always ask...but there are legal standards regarding the removal of the Public Defender...claiming a "conflict" does not say anything...

DJM