Legal Question in Criminal Law in Wisconsin

Yes; lawyers, including Public Defenders, can have many different conflicts which prevent them from representing a potential client, regardless of whether or not they believe that person to be guilty. For example, they could have a conflict of interest because they or one of their acquaintances was the victim of the crime, because they were already representing a co-defendant who might be called upon to testify against the new potential client, or because the new potential client somehow threatened the lawyer personally during the representation or pre-representation investigation. Therefore, there are innumerable grounds for any lawyer to decline representation short of the issue of guilt or innocence. However, if public defenders always had to believe that their clients were innocent, they would hardly be able to work at all, because the vast majority of criminal court clients end up being convicted. Therefore, although disqualification of a Public Defender based upon guilt or innocence could occur, it would be quite rare since believed guilt or innocence is not a pre-requisite for any lawyer, particularly a public defender, to consider in deciding whether or not to accept a client's case. While there may be countries in the world with legal systems which require criminal lawyers to believe in their client�s innocence, the United States, thankfully, is not one of them. Instead, our system operates under the believe that even a bad person deserves a good trial, and that everyone begins with a presumption of innocence until proven otherwise beyond any reasonable doubt.