Sniper Defense Costs to Top $1 Million

[adios]

What's wrong with this picuture?

Sniper Defense Costs to Top $1 Million

Sniper Defense Costs to Top $1 Million
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By MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press Writer

FAIRFAX, Va. - With the first trial in the Washington sniper case set to begin on Tuesday, the court-appointed lawyers for the two defendants have submitted nearly $900,000 in bills so far for reimbursement by Virginia taxpayers.


AP Photo



The attorneys appear to be on their way to racking up the most expensive court-appointed defenses in Virginia history, though nobody keeps statistics on such matters.


According to the Virginia Supreme Court, which keeps track of expenses incurred for indigent defendants, John Allen Muhammad's lawyers have filed for $401,785 through September. Lee Boyd Malvo's lawyers have filed for $478,677.


The bills include lawyers' fees of $125 an hour, and payments for court-appointed investigators, mental-health experts and forensic experts. The bills do not include the costs of the trials themselves, which will require housing not only for the lawyers but for all their witnesses.


Both trials have been moved about 200 miles from the Washington suburbs to Hampton Roads for fear it will be difficult to select an unbiased jury in the metropolitan area where the sniper shootings created such fear last fall.


Muhammad, 42, goes on trial Tuesday in Virginia Beach in the Oct. 9 shooting of Dean Harold Meyers outside a Manassas gas station. Malvo's trial, in the Oct. 14 shooting death of FBI analyst Linda Franklin, begins Nov. 10 in Chesapeake. Muhammad's trial is expected to take six weeks, Malvo's trial perhaps four.


The two are charged with 13 shootings, including 10 killings, over a three-week span last October in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. They are also suspected or charged in shootings in Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Arizona and Washington state.


Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr. said he has never seen so much money spent on a defense in the 37 years he has served as chief prosecutor in Virginia's most populous county.


"My personal view is that Virginia made a very bad mistake when they took the cap off the fees" paid to court-appointed defense lawyers in capital cases, Horan said. "It's an open invitation to file any motion under the sun. It's just totally changed the landscape on these things."


The prosecution's costs are unclear. Horan said any figure would be a guess because many of the witnesses are government employees who get paid whether or not they work on the sniper case.


In Virginia, court-appointed lawyers' fees are usually capped. The most a lawyer can get is $1,235 to represent a defendant charged with a felony punishable by 20 or more years. That cap used to apply to capital murder cases but was lifted by the Legislature in the late 1980s.


Craig Cooley, one of Malvo's lawyers and a veteran defense attorney who has handled scores of capital cases, said he was paid exactly $400 on each of the first 20 capital cases to which he was assigned.


Cooley said that the Malvo case is the most expensive he has ever been involved with, but that the defense costs are "a smidgen compared to what prosecutors are spending."


The sniper case "is incredibly more complex" than a typical capital case, Cooley said, with a sprawling investigation that includes more than a dozen shooting scenes and investigators who have had to travel to Louisiana, Washington, Jamaica and Antigua, among other places.


Jonathan Shapiro, one of Muhammad's lawyers, said the sniper case is like none other before it, with the possible exception of the Oklahoma City bombing.


Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh's defense team racked up nearly $14 million in expenses paid by federal taxpayers. (McVeigh's prosecution cost $82 million, according to government records.) That case, though, was handled in federal court, which is more liberal about allowing defense attorneys to spend money on jury consultants and other items.


Shapiro said the judge gave him and co-counsel Peter Greenspun most of what they asked for, though the defense team was denied a request for a jury consultant and some other items.





Shapiro said the need for investigators is made greater by Virginia's rules of evidence, which do not require prosecutors to share all that they have learned with the defense.

Shapiro unsuccessfully asked for sanctions against police who leaked numerous documents to two Washington Post reporters who wrote a recent book about the case.

"There is a ton of stuff we never would have found out" if not for the book, Shapiro said. "The irony is just so extreme that they went to such lengths to withhold the information from us, but they just give it out to the press."

[elwoodblues]

Is something supposed to be jumping out at me as "wrong with this picture." I guess my assumptions about these things might be different than yours. My assumptions are the following:
1) Since the landmark case of Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), indigent defendants in state court cases have the right to appointed counsel.
2) The accused is an indigent defendant in a state court action.
3) The accused is entitled to appointed counsel.
4) Death penalty cases are expensive to defend
5) This is a death penalty case
6) This case will be expensive to defend
7) Because the state is paying the defense costs (see number 3 above) and this case will be expensive to defend (see number 6) the state will pay a lot for the defense.

It's probably just me, but I don't see anything wrong with this picture. I'm in favor of smaller government. When the government wants to take either life, liberty, or property, I'm going to require of the government that they follow the proper procedure (the 5th and 14th amendments to the Constitution also require this, it isn't just elwoodblues doing a whole bunch of crazy-talk). If the government is going to take a life in my name (this is a democratic-republic after all), I want to make darn sure that they don't screw it up (we've been known to do that in the past). One of the ways to make sure that the government doesn't screw it up is with adequate representation by disinterested counsel (wow, it's funny how these things tend to make sense when you put all the pieces together). The accused cannot afford adequate representation. For the case to go forward without counsel, we (all of us who like smaller government) would be allowing the government to take someone's life with very little effort. To put a check on government, we decided to require the state to pay for defense costs for indigent defendants...and the picture becomes much clearer.

~elwoodblues

[HDPM]

An average capital case costs about 500,000 in attorneys fees and experts. That is if the lawyers are doing their job. I think it is now a problem for a lawyer to accept a cap or a flat fee on an appointed capital case, at least per the guidelines the ABA has issued. Capital cases are horrendously expensive, and they should be. Plenty of mistakes are made and the stakes are too high to do it on the cheap. The ABA guidelines now require 2 lawyers, 2 or more investigators, a mental health expert, and access to other experts. In a case like the sniper case with publicity and venue issues, I believe a jury consultant is necessary. Figure 50-75 K for the work you need on that alone. Also, I think a lot of motions must be relitigated in each capital case. The Supreme Court has shown that what is constitutional today might not be constitutional tomorrow. So IMO a lawyer needs to raise issues hoping the argument laughed at now is the one that overturns the death penalty in 10 years.

What I find wrong is that Virginia caps fees for appointed counsel at 1200 for serious felonies. That amount is ridiculous. A DUI case that pleads takes 1200 in time pretty easily. More if you have any motions at all. A felony trial for 1200? No way. That is a nice way to go broke. You can't have your own practice and do felonies for 1200. Unless you just want to do one pro bono or something. To pay a lawyer 1200 on a rape or something is ridiculous and unconstitutional IMO. Also, their discovery rules need to change.


FWIW China has a very inexpensive capital defense system. I don't suggest we emulate it though.

[adios]

"It's probably just me, but I don't see anything wrong with this picture. I'm in favor of smaller government. When the government wants to take either life, liberty, or property, I'm going to require of the government that they follow the proper procedure (the 5th and 14th amendments to the Constitution also require this, it isn't just elwoodblues doing a whole bunch of crazy-talk)."

Whoa there partner. Who stated that I didn't want to follow proper procedure in prosecuting these defendends? What dollar figure constitutes an adequate defense? Why is it only $1 million and not $50 million? Why isn't it $500,000? Why isn't it $250,000? Why not a $1,000,000,000? There are two things that I see is very wrong. One is that is a situation where the indigent defendents get a better defense than someone who is say making $50,000 and has a net worth of $100,000. The second thing I see wrong is the potential for corruption and the justification for these costs.

"One of the ways to make sure that the government doesn't screw it up is with adequate representation by disinterested counsel (wow, it's funny how these things tend to make sense when you put all the pieces together). The accused cannot afford adequate representation. For the case to go forward without counsel, we (all of us who like smaller government) would be allowing the government to take someone's life with very little effort. "

Oh and I said that they shouldn't be represented by an attorney? Where did I say that? What do you define as adequate representation? Again why wouldn't $100,1000 represent adequate representation? You've put words in my mouth and pontificated a lot but you've offered zero justification for this amount of money to constitutes an adequate defense? I'd bet a lot of money that the legal bills for capital offenses for defendents in Virginia don't average anywhere close to this kind of money.

[adios]

"An average capital case costs about 500,000 in attorneys fees and experts."

Some questions. Is that just if they go to trial? Is this for a defense only? Is that for the trial only or does it include appeals? At what rate per hour is this figure arrived i.e. at what rate do the attorneys charge? In this particular case $125 an hour seems kind of low [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]. I hope I didn't come across as being confrontational or cross examining you [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] but I'll admit I am surprised at that figure. So actually these defendends are really getting a low cost defense? Is that what we're saying here?

[MMMMMM]

elwoodblues sounds a lot like a former frequent poster who shall go unnamed at the moment. The tendency to put words (or thoughts) in others' mouths, combined with the condescending sarcasm, narrows the choice down to three individuals IMO. Of course I could be wrong and elwoodblues might be a newcomer simply expressing his concerns in the nicest manner he can muster.

[adios]

The Application of the Death Penalty in Colorado

HDPM I know you can shed some light on this for me. It looks like the average cost to defend capital cases in Colorado is much less than $500,000 and it seems that Colorado is very in tuned with giving defendents a fair trial in their cases.

From the document:

[b]January 21, 2003
The Honorable John Andrews The Honorable Joan Fitzgerald
President, Colorado State Senate Senate Minority Leader
200 E. Colfax Avenue Colorado State Senate
Denver, CO 80203 200 E. Colfax Avenue
Denver, CO 80203
The Honorable Lola Spradley
Speaker of the House of Representatives The Honorable Jennifer Veiga
200 E. Colfax Avenue House Minority Leader
Denver, CO 80203 Colorado House of Representatives
200 E. Colfax Avenue
Denver, CO 80203
Re: The Application of the Death Penalty in Colorado
Dear Senators Andrews and Fitzgerald and Representatives Spradley and Veiga:
Given the events concerning the death penalty in Illinois, I would like to provide you with a brief status of the application of the death penalty here in Colorado. As the
cases and the evidence make clear, the death penalty is applied in Colorado in a thoughtful, careful and prudent manner.
1. Colorado only applies the death penalty in rare and aggravated cases .
Since 1986, only 8 men have been sentenced to death in Colorado. Only one murderer has been executed (Gary Davis--October 1997). A second died of hepatitis (Frank Rodriguez-- Spring 2002).
Five men presently remain on Colorado's death row: Nathan Dunlap, Robert Harlan, Francisco Martinez, William Lee Neal, and George Woldt. Attached is a summary of crimes for which these men were sentenced to death. These cases
demonstrate that the defendants on Colorado’s death row committed the most heinous crimes imaginable and were appropriate defendants for the death penalty.
Six death penalty cases are set for trial this year, 2003.
2. Colorado's 4-step death sentence process is the most protective in the country.
Colorado's death penalty statute, C.R.S. § 18-1.3-1201, et.seq. provides that a 3-step process must occur during the death sentencing earings following a conviction for
First Degree Murder. The Colorado Supreme Court has added an additional 4th step as a result of their holdings in People v. Tenneson, 788 P.2d 786 (1990). No other state in the country other than Utah, requires a 4-step process for death penalty sentencing. These
steps are:
Step 1: After the conviction for First Degree Murder in the guilt phase of the trial, the jury, in the sentencing phase, must decide whether the prosecution has proven
the existence of one or more "aggravating factors" beyond a reasonable doubt.
Step 2: The jury must determine whether there are mitigating factors.
Step 3: The jury must determine whether or not mitigating factors outweigh the proven aggravating factors.
Step 4: Finally, the jury must determine whether, based on all the evidence, they are convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that death is the appropriate sentence.
No other state, other than Utah, requires these complex four procedural steps in the death penalty sentencing process.
3. The criticisms of national death penalty abolitionists do not apply in Colorado.
There are specific individuals who oppose the death penalty under any circumstances and attempt to cultivate public opinion against the death penalty. Often the arguments made are that the death penalty is applied unfairly because

(a) states do not supply resources and experienced attorneys for the defense;

(b) states overreach by seeking the death penalty against minors and mentally retarded defendants;

(c) the death penalty is applied disproportionately against minorities; and

(d) prosecutors are over zealous and not thoughtful in the application of the death penalty. In Colorado, these
proposed arguments are not consistent with the facts.
A. The State of Colorado provides experienced attorneys and significant resources for the defense of individuals charged with capital murders. The Office of the Public Defender in Colorado has an annual budget in excess of
$25 million. They have experienced attorneys and investigators assigned to their death penalty cases. On average, they spend well over $200,000 of state funds defending a death penalty case. Two and a half years ago, a member of the state Public Defender’s office was quoted as saying that Colorado spends an average of over $200,000 to
$220,000 on the trial defense of each capital case. Rocky Mountain News, "Death Penalty Debate: Executions Are Rare In Colorado, And Many Want To Keep The System That Way,” June 25, 2000. As noted by the Chief Deputy Public Defender in that article, A death penalty case in Texas costs anywhere from $35,000 to $50,000 for the defense, and in Colorado it’s from $200,000 to $220,000. What does
that extra $150,000 buy you? Well, it buys you a fair trial. You get the investigation. You get lawyers who care about what they’re doing, who have the time and the resources to be an advocate on your behalf. You get
a demand of justice from the prosecution and the courts and the jurors, and you get the capacity of a lawyer to do that. ... We’re nationally recognized as perhaps the premier public defender system in the country.
Additionally, in 1996 the state legislature created the Office of Alternate Counsel that appoints lawyers to represent capital defendants where the public defender has a conflict.
That office now has an annual budget of approximately $12 million.
Every year both the prosecution (Attorney General’s office and the offices of the local District Attorneys) and state funded defense counsel are required to report their
death penalty case costs to the General Assembly. Capital case defense costs can be determined by reviewing these reports filed by the Attorney General and the District
Attorneys, the Office of the Public Defender and the Office of Alternate Counsel.
Defense costs in capital cases from the October 2002 reports from the State Public Defender and Alternate Defense Counsel are as follows:
1. Public Defender $1,398,292
2. Alternate Defense Counsel $1,247,168
Total $2,645,460
The Attorney General’s report, which collects both the costs of local prosecutors and the costs of the Attorney General’s staff in capital cases, showed the following expenditures in the October 2002 report:
1. District Attorneys $743,321
2. Attorney General $394,071
Total $1,137,392
These numbers show that the Attorney General and the District Attorneys are outspent by the defense almost two and half dollars to every one dollar spent by prosecutors, or 2.5
to 1.B. Colorado statutes already specifically exclude seeking the death penalty in aggravated murder cases where the defendant is a minor or is mentally retarded.
Again, this argument against the death penalty does not apply in Colorado.
C.R.S. § 18-1.3-1201(1)(a) provides that the death penalty cannot be sought for defendants who are mentally retarded or less than 18 years old.
C. Gary Davis is the only death row inmate executed in Colorado since 1967.
Gary Davis was convicted in 1987 of the brutal kidnapping, sex assault and murder of a mother in rural Adams County. Gary Davis is the only murderer executed in Colorado since 1967. Gary Davis was a sex offender on parole at the time of the murder.
D. When questions arise concerning the death penalty, Colorado's prosecutors and lawmakers take a careful and cautious approach to those issues.
On June 24, 2002, the United States Supreme Court announced the Ring v.Arizona decision. The United States Supreme Court reversed its earlier position and held
that statutory aggravating factors in a death penalty sentencing must be made by a jury, rather than a judge.
In response, Governor Owens called a special session last summer to address potential consequences of the Ring decision. The General Assembly, the Governor and
Colorado’s law enforcement community worked together to provide additional security and confidence for Colorado's death penalty laws. The decision was made to take the
most cautious and secure approach and return all death penalty decision making to juries.
4. Conclusion.
In conclusion, Colorado applies the death penalty in a most cautious and prudent manner. The stated concerns surrounding the death penalty do not apply in Colorado. I
have confidence in the manner in which the death penalty is applied in Colorado, and believe you should also. Perhaps the most telling fact surrounding the death penalty in
Colorado is that there has been no claim by the defense that any of the defendants on death row are innocent.
Colorado’s capital punishment statutes, procedure and operation have been, and will continue to be carried out in a cautious and thoughtful way.
Sincerely,
KEN SALAZAR
Attorney General
cc: Peter Weir, Executive Director, Colorado District Attorneys Council
Sheriff George Epp, Executive Director, County Sheriffs of Colorado
Chief Walter Vanatta, President, Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police[/b

[HDPM]

Very recently I had a few with a guy in the Colorado Public Defender's office who has tried a lot of death cases. We talked about funding capital defense and what the Colorado Public Defenders have done regarding their budget and how efficient they are. The Colorado Public Defender has been very aggressive about getting an adequate budget, going so far as to decline to take cases if they get overloaded. However, they are very efficient - very little administration and a lot of experienced lawyers. It is no surprise their costs are low because they are a statewide system and have very good lawyers who receive public sector salaries. it thus costs the same to have one of their lawyers try a death case as sit in the office. They also can do a lot of investigation in-house. There still will be extra costs on a capital case, but Colorado's public defender system is very good. And the legislature in Colorado knows it. The legislature won't cut their budget a lot because they know that the alternative to the public defender will cost a lot. So even when they win a lot of death cases they don't suffer at the hands of law and order republicans. And the Colorado Public Defender's Office has done an amazing job keeping death row empty since they were formed. There was a reason the legislature scrapped jury sentencing and went to 3 judge panels (until that procedure was ruled unconstitutional) The public defenders made it very very hard for prosecutors to win death verdicts. the Colorado public Defender is a model for public defenders really. All states should do something similar IMO. Texas getting away w/ 35-50 K is laughable. No wonder they execute so many.

The numbers I have seen at 500,000 came from federal public defenders I think. I am not sure exactly what they looked at. And of course it varies. But a death case takes around 1800 - 2000 hours for each lawyer. A year of time basically. Sometimes more. So if you have 2 lawyers at 100/hr figure on 400K for that. Then a mitigation investigation which must be very detailed. And a fact investigation. And experts. This is if the case goes to trial. You still have some expense if the case pleads, because the investigation needs to be done up front. Often you need to let things shake out some to get the case in a position to plead. But it is still a lot cheaper to plead one than to try one. My numbers were defense costs only. Not any extra prosecution expenses or costs to sequester a jury, etc...

[HDPM]

See my post above, but a couple more points. I am thinking of trial only. Appeals cost more. It is usually cheaper to pay for life without parole than a death sentence.

[Boris]

lol. Don't act so suprised at the reactions you get Tom. The only commentary you gave on the article was "what's wrong with this picture?"

The implication was clearly that something was wrong, or was this just a trick question? Since you neglected to point out anything wrong with the picture we are left to try and guess what you might think is wrong or we can just offer any commentary we deem appropriate. People put words in your mouth because you don't. If you're so concerned about being misinterpreted then you should elaborate a bit more on what exactly it is you're trying to communicate.

I'm going to go out on a limb here at label you as one of the "conservative" posters on this forum. I don't really know how to define a conservative but I know one when I see one. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] It seems to me that the conservatives are often concerned about the fact that there aren't enough hanging judges; so it only seems fair that you believe they are spending too damn much money defending the accused snipers.