That's arguably a good point, but I think it's mitigated substantially by the fact that the overwhelming majority of those defended by the public defenders' office haven't had their assets seized (because they haven't got any), and any individual defendant with so many assets having been seized that it starts looking like a value proposition for the public defender to throw the case has probably got enough extra stashed somewhere, or enough friends, that they aren't being defended by the public defender anyway.
I'm not saying it would never happen, but it would certainly be a lot more rare than "hey look, this shady fellow has got a lot of money, let's prosecute him instead of criminals who are causing more damage to society because it's more profitable to the law enforcement agency who gets the money."
Edit: It would also be possible to just remove the moral hazard. In the rare case where the public defender is counsel for a defendant whose assets have been seized, then in that case if the defendant loses the assets don't go to the public defender, they go somewhere else. Like, say, lead abatement: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5006368
Edit 2: Really, you're probably right. I think I'm just defending it because I had a thought late at night before thinking it through and immediately posted it, and now I feel like I should be defending my idea even if it isn't any good. Almost all of these "x found money is allocated to y thing" plans are the wrong way to go -- the amount of money something needs to operate is unrelated to the amount of ticket revenue or asset seizures or whatever.
But it shouldn't be allocated to law enforcement either, for the same reasons. That is what really needs to be changed.
Maybe it all should go to lead abatement -- putting it in the general fund just hands the perverse incentives to Congress. Allocating it strictly to lead abatement puts it in the hands of people with no obvious relation to asset seizures and so no obvious ability to unjustly increase the number of seizures or fraudulent guilty verdicts for pecuniary gain, and solves a serious problem that also happens to be an extremely cost-effective use of the money.
I'm not saying it would never happen, but it would certainly be a lot more rare than "hey look, this shady fellow has got a lot of money, let's prosecute him instead of criminals who are causing more damage to society because it's more profitable to the law enforcement agency who gets the money."
Edit: It would also be possible to just remove the moral hazard. In the rare case where the public defender is counsel for a defendant whose assets have been seized, then in that case if the defendant loses the assets don't go to the public defender, they go somewhere else. Like, say, lead abatement: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5006368
Edit 2: Really, you're probably right. I think I'm just defending it because I had a thought late at night before thinking it through and immediately posted it, and now I feel like I should be defending my idea even if it isn't any good. Almost all of these "x found money is allocated to y thing" plans are the wrong way to go -- the amount of money something needs to operate is unrelated to the amount of ticket revenue or asset seizures or whatever.
But it shouldn't be allocated to law enforcement either, for the same reasons. That is what really needs to be changed.
Maybe it all should go to lead abatement -- putting it in the general fund just hands the perverse incentives to Congress. Allocating it strictly to lead abatement puts it in the hands of people with no obvious relation to asset seizures and so no obvious ability to unjustly increase the number of seizures or fraudulent guilty verdicts for pecuniary gain, and solves a serious problem that also happens to be an extremely cost-effective use of the money.