Inequalities in sentencing are one matter. It is another thing entirely if trials are not fair. I think for the most part, western nations provide fair trials.
Furthermore, corruption - at least in the US - is taken pretty seriously. Where as a matter of course one might offer a bribe to a policeman in certain countries, it's actually pretty rare here. And in the cases corruption does come to light, it almost always ends public service careers, even (especially?) for high ranking officials.
Is it correlated? At the end of the day 12 randomly selected people from the population decide whether the person is guilty or not guilty.
How that system can be corrupted, even by the skills of persuasion, is beyond me. Some facts are simply facts and no gift of communication can change that.
Lawyers are not magicians. Lawyers can't by simple force of intellect persuade the jury to acquit someone when the fact clearly show to any impartial reasonable observer, as normally is the case with a jury of 12 people, that the person has committed the crime.
You might have a stronger argument in regards to how decisions are made as to which case is prosecuted, how much resources are allocated to gathering the facts to prosecute a case related to drugs as compared to a case related to financial fraud, but in my opinion, once the person charged is in court, I think there is no corruption at all.
The a large percentage, perhaps even a majority, of trials end in the striking of some sort of deal before the case ever goes in front of a jury. You'd better believe that the successful local lawyer who's the DA's golfing buddy gets better deals than some zit-faced public defender who just passed the bar exam. I know that sounds quaint, but it happens all the time in America, especially in small towns where the good ole boys club is still very much a going concern.
In the UK you get 33% off the sentence if you plead guilty at the first opportunity, i.e. at the police station or the first time you appear in court, 20% at the second opportunity, etc.
Public defenders usually produce better outcomes than private lawyers, the exception being private lawyers who were once district attorneys or public defenders.
Public defenders get a bad rap because most of their clients are--get this--actually guilty of the crimes they are charged with. The vast majority of defendants accept their guilt and are unwilling to pay thousands for a private lawyer who will not produce a better outcome. For these defendants, the public defenders are merely there to make sure that their rights are protected (at this point, usually procedural rights, i.e., due process).
A lot of the remaining clients go to trial simply because they can without having to pay for it (i.e., go down fighting). These clients have no chance of winning (multiple eyewitnesses, caught on video, caught with the goods/drugs/weapons, DNA/fingerprints, unsolicited confessions, etc.), but the public defender goes to trial anyway because that is what the client has demanded. (Private attorneys would simply inform them that their rates for trial are usually double their standard rates; at this point most clients either switch to public defenders or plead out.)
>Public defenders usually produce better outcomes than private lawyers, the exception being private lawyers who were once district attorneys or public defenders.
Working for the public defender in California and volunteering with prosecutor's office elsewhere.
Blue states have high-quality public defenders because they receive adequate support from the state. Certain Southern states also have high-quality public defenders, as a result of the civil rights movement (for example, Atlanta, Georgia).
In a lot of smaller counties (including in California), public defenders are private lawyers operating under contract (because there is not sufficient need for a full-time public defender). They're usually selected because they are extremely competent and/or have cozy ties to the D.A., but either way, they also produce good results.
Not all public defenders are good. In some states (specifically Ohio and most Southern states), public defenders are employees of the "county" but are paid minimum wage base salaries and receive the bulk of the compensation as commissions per-case (regardless of outcome). In those states, public defenders generally have little to no budget to hire experts or investigators, but face off against prosecutors who have essentially unlimited resources (and market-rate salaries with pensions). As a result, these public defenders are overworked and simply do not have the time or resources to do a good job on any of their cases.
If you're looking for the actual numbers, I don't know of a freely available source. There are usually a few law journals that publish these stats every year or two, but my current legal database subscription does not include access to these journals.
Furthermore, corruption - at least in the US - is taken pretty seriously. Where as a matter of course one might offer a bribe to a policeman in certain countries, it's actually pretty rare here. And in the cases corruption does come to light, it almost always ends public service careers, even (especially?) for high ranking officials.