State’s budget woes bring a slowdown in capital cases
In the 18 months since he took the helm of the Richmond area capital defender’s office, David Baugh said he has seen about 10 capital cases end in pleas after prosecutors pulled the death penalty off the table.
The result? Life in prison for the defendants and likely a savings to Virginia’s taxpayers, who won’t have to foot the bill for defense fees associated with lengthy trials and years of appeals, Baugh said.
With a $3.5 billion budget shortfall, the state has to make some tough decisions on using manpower and money to prosecute the capital cases, he said. Three out of four state capital defender offices are understaffed. State officials already have frozen vacant positions. Now, Baugh said, the state should consider freezing capital punishment as the next cost-saving measure.
“The state ought to give serious thought to a moratorium on the death penalty until the budget gets straight,” Baugh said. “You’d be amazed how much the state pays.”
The state paid more than $1 million to cover the defense of John Allen Muhammad, who was executed last month for one in a series of sniper shootings that terrorized Northern Virginia in 2002.
Other capital cases carry significant costs, although not nearly as high as the bills for Muhammad’s defense. For example, the state paid $150,472 to cover defense expenses for Carl Lee Walton, said Katya Herndon, spokeswoman for the state Supreme Court.
Walton, of Virginia Beach, shot and killed two women at point-blank range in 2005. His first trial, in 2007, ended in mistrial. He was convicted at a second trial in October, but rather than sentence him to death, a judge ordered he spend life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Thomas A. Porter was sentenced to death in 2007 for capital murder in the killing of Norfolk police Officer Stanley C. Reaves. The state has paid about $127,000 to cover his defense expenses, Herndon said.
Those figures include the fees – $150 per hour out of court, $200 per hour in court – for private attorneys who are court-appointed. Salaries of capital defenders, who are automatically appointed to represent indigent defendants, and expenses amassed by prosecutors are not included.
Taxpayers are covering costs of 13 other active capital cases across Virginia. In October, Douglas Ramseur took the helm of the capital defender’s office for the state’s southeastern region. Since then, one attorney has retired from the Norfolk-based office and another announced plans to leave for a position in a private firm.
The departures leave Ramseur and one other attorney to handle four capital cases, including one in Virginia Beach. Although he has received a waiver allowing him to quickly fill one of those vacancies, Ramseur said it likely will be February or March before a new attorney is hired.
“That’s the challenge, finding people who want to take on death penalty cases,” he said. The cases are stressful and the pay is low compared to a position in a private firm, he said. The turnover in the office was among the reasons a judge agreed to postpone Ted Vincent Carter’s capital murder trial, originally set for Jan. 26. Carter is accused of robbing and shooting a police detective who was trying to buy drugs during an undercover operation last year.
Ramseur declined to speak about his Richmond colleague’s suggestion, but Virginia Beach Commonwealth’s Attorney Harvey Bryant noted the death penalty’s role as a deterrent and said cost shouldn’t be a factor in the state’s decision to seek it.
“The cost of it never has been, and never should be, a factor in whether to seek it,” he said.
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, a Democrat and Roman Catholic, has made his opposition to the death penalty clear while campaigning and while in office, spokeswoman Lynda Tran said. But, she said, he has allowed 11 executions to be carried out.
She knew of no formal proposals to halt capital punishment in the commonwealth for budgetary reasons. “What we’re looking at is a $3.5 billion budget gap,” she said. “Whatever the cost of the moratorium might be in terms of savings, I’m not sure it would have a huge savings anyway.”
Bryant, who plans to argue for Carter’s execution in Virginia Beach next year, said a moratorium wouldn’t be approved by the General Assembly or by Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell. The state’s population wouldn’t approve it, either, he said.
“I have enough faith in Virginians in general that, if it was put to a referendum, they would never say let’s just stop the death penalty because it costs too much.”
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