Federal Death Penalty Cases

Update on the Cost, Quality, and Availability of Defense Representation in Federal Death Penalty Cases: Preliminary Report on Phase One of the Research

(June 2008)

Cover Page

• Introduction
• Decisions by the Department of Justice to Seek the Death Penalty: Their Implications for Defense Costs
• Defendants Subject to Capital Prosecution: Potential Death Penalty Cases, 1989-2007
• The Attorney General's Decision-Making and How It Has Changed
• Resolution of Authorized Cases
• Geographic Distribution of Authorized Cases
• Costs of Defending Federal Capital Cases
• Cases Examined
• Data Examined
• Findings
• Total Case Costs
• Comparison to the Spencer Report
• Attorney Costs
• Expert Costs
• Transcript Costs
• Explanations for and Predictors of Case Costs
• Hypotheses
• Use of Experts
• Case Characteristics
• Capital Culture
• Attorney General Making the Authorization Decision
• Geography
• Other Factors
• Influence of Case Costs on Outcome
• Conclusion

• Appendix A: Spencer Report Recommendations
• Appendix B: Data Examined
• Appendix C: Supplemental Data

• Figures and Tables
• Figure 1: Potential Federal Capital Defendants, by Calendar Year
• Figure 2: Federal Capital Authorization Decisions, by Authorization Year
• Figure 3: Number of Federal Capital Defendants Tried, by Calendar Year
• Figure 4: Number of Federal Death Sentences, by Calendar Year
• Table 1: Federal Death Penalty Prosecutions, 1989-2007
• Figure 5: Number of Authorized Capital Defendants by Circuit
• Figure 6: Federal Capital Trials by State, 1989-1997
• Figure 7: Federal Capital Trials by State, 1998-2007
• Figure 8: Federal Death-Eligible Cases Studied, 1998-2004
• Table 2: Total Cost for Defense Representation in Federal Capital Cases, 1998-2004
• Figure 9: Cost Variance in Authorized Capital Cases, Trials vs. Pleas
• Table 3: Total Case Cost, Spencer Report Compared to Update
• Table 4: Attorney Cost, 1998-2004
• Table 5: Attorney Hours, Spencer Report Compared to Update
• Table 6: Attorney In-Court Hours, Spencer Report Compared to Update
• Table 7: Attorney Out-of-Court Hours, Spencer Report Compared to Update
• Table 8: Expert Costs, Spencer Report Compared to Update
• Table 9: Transcript Cost Per Defendant, 1998-2004
• Figure 10: Division of Expert Costs for Trial Cases
• Figure 11: Division of Expert Costs for Plea Cases
• Table 10: Factors that Predict Increased Case Cost, Bivariate Relationships
• Table 11: Effect of Attorney General's Decision-Making on Case Length
• Table 12: Relationship Between Trial Case Cost and Death Sentence
• Figure C.1: Number of Federal Capital Defendants Going to Trial/Trials Commencing, by Calendar Year
• Figure C.2: Population of Federal Death Row by State and Circuit