Conflict Of Interest for Public Defenders works like this :
Quote:
Conflict of interest
Because conflict of interest problems could exist where multiple defendants participated in a single crime, such as a bank robbery or a drive-by shooting, only one person in a group of co-defendants will be assigned an attorney from a public defender office. For many defendants, it is in their best interest to testify against co-defendants in exchange for a reduced sentence. To ensure that each defendant is afforded his constitutional right to an effective defense, jurisdictions may have several public defender entities, or a "conflict panel" of private practice attorneys. This enables the court to assign each defendant an attorney from a completely separate office, thereby guarding against the risk of one client's privileged information accidentally falling into the hands of another client's attorney. Some jurisdictions, like in Los Angeles County, employ a separate entity for legal representation called the Alternate Public Defender's office. Any further conflicts are handled by court-appointed private attorneys.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_defender
The fact that the city pays the Public Defender isn't the problem.
The fact that they claim the guy had an accomplice who was going to crash the system at a later date is (more than one defendant).
Since they made that claim, and then backed off of it after the Public Defender withdrew, the DA's office looks inept.
Going by what the private attorney, taking the place of the Public Defender as required by law, has said the DA's office has blundered from start to finish.
It's starting to sound like an awful lot of the claims released to the press just weren't based in reality (Can't call'em false till shown to be so in court.).