DA's can actually do a lot to help these kinds of defendants from the DA side, because they can be more lenient, merciful, etc. The problem sometimes is that t

DA's can actually do a lot to help these kinds of defendants from the DA side, because they can be more lenient, merciful, etc. The problem sometimes is that the boss DA is still the boss and can just tell any of his assistant DAs to go after people so he looks "tough on crime". So even if all the ADAs are very empathetic, they aren't the ones making every decision. I've listened to a lot of interviews with DAs and a lot of them actually do want to help these kinds of poor defendants, so they start out as public defenders. But then they realize that the real power is in the DA's office with sentencing and charging and such, so they switch over.