The Indiana Law Blog has been doing a great job of covering the David Camm murder trial. Today, the ILB has a post on the subject of paying for these trials. Because of problems the first two go rounds, they’re headed for a third trial; this time with a special prosecutor.
So far, the trials have cost $3 million and the next one probably is not going to cost any less than $1 million. Floyd County says it’s keeping its head above water; but the County might have to dig into its Rainy Day Fund and/or Economic Development Income Tax.
I would think this kind of spending is particularly tough for county decision makers. It is easy, and mostly popular, to take a “let justice be done; though the heavens may fall” approach to prosecution, but at the end of the day, $4 million could do a county a lot of good if it were available for other purposes. If, just pulling numbers out of thin air, the guy was willing to plead to a 30 year sentence at a cost to the county of $100,000; is the extra benefit of a life sentence worth $3,900,000?
Let’s not forget the [presumably] cheaper trial of Charles Boney. This has been going on since I was in high school (my 10th year reunion is tomorrow night). From what I understand, either of the first two convictions may have held if the prosecutors hadn’t overreached and introduced allegations of infidelity and molestation.
Regardless, the fact that this case is coming up for a third (fourth, if you include Boneh’s conviction) run through makes me glad I don’t pay Floyd County taxes anymore.
I can’t fathom how a county can spend $4 million dollars on a single trial, (even over multiple years), and still have money left for regular county expenditures without the addition of other tax revenues. That number is staggering.
I’d like to see a detailed cost breakdown. How could you run up that kind of bill? Prosecutors and public defenders are paid a pittance. Court facilities are a sunk cost, you pay for them whether or not there is a trial. Is this just creative accounting? Where did the money go?
Buzz: The number astounds me as well. Still, I might be able to shed some light…. Many times, Public Defenders do not have sufficient experience or have other conflicts to do such a trial, and a non-PD is called in to take the case. The non-PD can bill at whatever a reasonable rate is. Here we also have a special prosecutor as well. At $200 an hour, those billable hours can burn through funds quite quickly. Plus you have all sorts of tests and experts and so on that are not cheap. Jurors have to be sequestered during trial at $150 a day (times 12 jurors plus any spares).
One nugget in this article is very interesting to me. The County Council president (Heavrin) said: ““This trial’s important because of the people that got murdered.” That comment is a bit disturbing, and implies that the County is pursuing this matter at high financial cost because of who the victims were. So, if the victims were just typical residents, the Council might make different decision.
That’s a problem. Imagine if we had state provided health-care and decided some lives were worth more than others? Oh wait, bad example. (just kidding Obamacare fans – couldn’t resist.)
Why would you pay a public defender $200 an hour? Our public defenders are part timers who largely do it for the health insurance. For example, one of our County Councilmen does the public defender thing on the side. He gets the health insurance from being a PD, plus he has his own practice. It’s a nice racket if you can get it.
The value of the health insurance is about $15k per year. I think they make maybe $30k in salary. What’s that per hour, maybe $45?
You don’t pay a PD $200 an hour. You have to pay a non-PD sometimes if you don’t have a PD with enough experience.
Interesting story about your Councilman. Where I live, the County Council receive county health benefits. That would make a significant portion of his compensation (the health benefits of being a PD), worthless, since he would already be receiving that compensation.
Well, either way, I guess he’s a former County Councilman, he was defeated by the dude who beat me in the primary.
All of our PD’s are Democrat lawyer bigwigs who have practices on the side that pay the bills, but who get the health insurance from the County. One of my campaign ideas was to end health insurance benefits for part timers, which would stick it to the D’s biggest source of campaign donations. They were totally trading the PD positions for campaign contributions.