Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Every defendant in a criminal case has their own legal interests that must be protected. It is a conflict of interest for the same attorney (or the same law firm) to represent co-defendants in a case. For example, if two people are charged with murder, one may say the other did it and the second may say the first did it. There's no way a single attorney can represent both points of view - they're in conflict. To fix this, a second, independent attorney is appointed for the second defendant.

In most counties, indigent defendants are appointed the public defender. If there's a second defendant in the case, the entire public defender's office has a conflict of interest when it comes to that second defendant, so an attorney outside the PD's office is appointed.

In Orange County, for example, there is a separate government-funded office called the Alternate Defenders. They get the cases the public defender has a conflict with. From there, there are attorneys that agree to represent defendants if there are further conflicts (for example, multiple defendant cases).

It has nothing to do with a conflict between state and federal law.

It has nothing to do with a conflict of laws. Sometimes a law firm (including the public defender) cannot represent a particular client because the interests of that potential client are in conflict with the interests of an existing client. When the public defender declines a case due to such a conflict of interests, the defendant may instead be assigned a private attorney who has agreed to take such cases. The group of attorneys who have offered to take such cases and who have been approved for such work is called the conflicts panel.

Such conflicts can arise in many situations. In some cases, there are multiple defendants, some of whom may need to argue that the others are guilty. An attorney cannot accuse one client on behalf of another, so they would each need separate representation.

Similar problems can arise when the victim or a witness is a present or former client of the public defender's office. In those situations defense counsel may need to attack the credibility of the victim or witness, but a lawyer cannot attack his own client's credibility.

Some large counties have multiple public defender offices in order to deal with conflicts. I believe Los Angeles has six, but sometimes all of them would have conflicts of interest if they represented a particular defendant. When that happens the courts will turn to the conflicts panel.