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Sunday, November 08, 2009

Ind. Courts - "Bill for capital cases delivered to taxpayers"

The subheading of Andy Grimm's lengthy feature in the Gary Post-Tribune today is "Lake County, state have spent combined $2.7M defending death penalty defendants since 1990/"

A long side-bar to the story is headed "Defense Costs in Capital Cases," and begins:

The costs of putting a defendant to death are high, with taxpayers almost always footing a six-figure bill for extra attorneys, expert witnesses, psychiatrists and added investigators. Here are the costs just for defense attorneys in recent Northwest Indiana death penalty cases.

Edward Earl Williams -- Cost: $593,697

Sentence: Williams was charged in the 1992 murders of Carver Elementary School teacher Michael Richardson, Debra Ann Rice and Robert Hollins in Gary. His conviction was upheld on appeal to the state Supreme Court, but the federal 7th Circuit Court sent the case back to Lake County for re-trial. Williams, who changed his name to Akeem Aki-Khuam, pleaded guilty a few days before his new trial, and was sentenced to 120 years in prison.

Rufus Averhart

Cost: $521,668

Sentence: Averhart was charged with killing Gary police Lt. George Yaros during a 1981 bank robbery. Averhart, who changed his name to Zolo Agona Azania, was found guilty in 1982, but his death penalty sentence was overturned -- twice. In 2007, weeks before another trial, he pleaded guilty to armed robbery charges and received a 60-year sentence.

Eugene V. Britt -- Cost: $403,676 (Lake County costs only)

Sentence: Britt was charged with six counts of murder in Lake County in 2000, four years after he entered a guilty plea and was sentenced to life without parole for the 1995 rape and murder of Sarah Paulsen in Porter County. Prosecutors and defense lawyers fight over whether or not Britt is retarded and fit to stand trial for six years. Britt pleads guilty to the six murders and is sentenced to six life terms. He later pleads guilty but mentally ill to three other rape-murders.

Darryl Jeter -- Cost: $427,727

Sentence: Jeter was charged with the 2003 murder of Indiana State Trooper Scott Patrick, but jurors spared him from execution, sentencing the 21-year-old to life without parole in 2006 after hearing testimony about Jeter's troubled childhood and a "frontal lobe impairment" that effected his judgment.

Here are some quotes from the long main story:
A death sentence is the ultimate penalty, reserved for the worst defendants accused of the most heinous crimes. And it isn't cheap.

The Lake County Public Defender's office has asked to add $200,000 to its budget this year for expert witnesses and attorneys to defend Kevin Isom, a Gary man who faces the death penalty in the murder of his wife and her two teenage children in 2008, as well as two cases in which prosecutors are seeking the lesser sentence of life without parole.

Last week, Isom's attorneys asked the court for approval to hire defense experts who charge $80 to $100 an hour, and might log 1,000 hours over the course of the trial that will determine his guilt and the penalty phase that follows to determine whether he is to be executed.

It's a cost county officials can't deny, even as the county budget shrinks. When authorizing defense attorneys for Isom to hire experts, Lake County Judge Thomas Stefaniak lamented that county employees already face layoffs in 2010 as the county struggles to close a $17 million shortfall.

"Legally we are bound to do whatever we need to do," said Lake County public defender David Schneider. "If, God forbid, your loved one were standing trial in a death penalty case, that's what you would want.

"We're not going to skimp to defend our clients."

The state and county have jointly funded the defense of death penalty cases since the early 1990s, when the state Supreme Court mandated higher standards for attorneys in capital cases after a wave of successful appeals in the 1980s -- with nearly every case challenged successfully on grounds of ineffective assistance from appointed counsel.

The more expensive defense teams -- and requirements for detailed background investigations and psychological examinations of capital defendants -- have meant far fewer executions in Indiana.

Statewide, no one has been put to death in more than two years, the longest span without an execution in 15 years. No Northwest Indiana capital defendant has been executed since 1985 when Hammond killer William Vandiver died in the electric chair.

"Every time we have a death penalty case, the county spends a million dollars with the defense and prosecutors and the appeals," said Lake County Council President Larry Blanchard, who has presided over a series of contentious county budget cuts this year.

"And no one is ever executed. It makes you question whether it's worth the cost."

That is just the start of the article. Here is another quote:
"Whatever you say about the cost of defending these cases now, taking a case through the state appeals and federal court is not cheap either," said David Vandercoy, a Valparaiso University law school professor and criminal defense attorney. "The court seemed to think the thing to do was to get it right the first time."

The state Supreme Court in 1989 adopted Criminal Rule 24, which mandated experience levels and training for lawyers in capital cases and allowed the state to pay half the cost of the defense.

Since 1990, Lake County and the state have combined to spend more than $2.7 million defending 16 defendants in death penalty cases -- $168,000 per case. Lake County rivals only Marion County in the number of death penalty cases filed, and the amount spent defending them.

See also this ILB entry from Feb. 25th, headed "Citing Cost, States Consider End to Death Penalty."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 8, 2009 05:30 PM
Posted to Indiana Courts