Bill Text: MO HB1413 | 2010 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Limits the amount of aid the Attorney General may give in death penalty cases and establishes the Death Increment Fiscal Accountability Committee
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 1-0)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2010-05-14 - Referred: Crime Prevention (H) [HB1413 Detail]
Download: Missouri-2010-HB1413-Introduced.html
SECOND REGULAR SESSION
95TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY
INTRODUCED BY REPRESENTATIVE McGHEE.
3547L.01I D. ADAM CRUMBLISS, Chief Clerk
AN ACT
To repeal section 27.030, RSMo, and to enact in lieu thereof one new section relating to the use of state resources by political subdivisions to seek the death penalty, with penalty provisions.
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the state of Missouri, as follows:
Section A. Section 27.030, RSMo, is repealed and one new section enacted in lieu thereof, to be known as section 27.030, to read as follows:
27.030. 1. Except as provided in subsection 2 of this section, when directed by the governor, the attorney general, or one of his or her assistants, shall aid any prosecuting or circuit attorney in the discharge of their respective duties in the trial courts and in examinations before grand juries, and when so directed by the trial court, he or she may sign indictments in lieu of the prosecuting attorney.
2. In any case in which the accused has been charged with first degree murder and the death penalty has not been waived, the attorney general, or one of his or her assistants, may aid the prosecuting attorney or circuit attorney only on the following conditions:
(1) The attorney general shall establish a committee to be known as the "Death Increment Fiscal Accountability Committee". It shall consist of five attorneys, each of whom must have been admitted to practice in the courts of the state of Missouri for not less than five years, and must have served as first or second chair counsel for either party in at least one death penalty trial in state or federal court. No more than two of the committees' members shall be employed full-time or part-time by the attorney general. No more than two of its members shall be employed full-time in the prosecution of criminal cases; no more than two of its members shall be employed full-time in the defense of criminal cases; and at least one of its members shall have tried at least one federal capital case to verdict either as lead counsel or as co-counsel for the accused. Members of the committee shall serve without pay for their services as such, but shall be compensated by the attorney general for actual expenses incurred in their service on the committee. The committee shall review all cases in which the attorney general is requested to provide assistance in seeking the death penalty against the accused;
(2) The attorney general shall create a trust account to be known as the "Death Increment Trust Account", which shall be the sole source of funding for the costs of attorney general's or one of his or her assistants' seeking the death penalty at the trial level. This account shall be subject to the requirements of Missouri Supreme Court Rule 4-1.15;
(3) Unless the attorney general, in his or her discretion, declines to seek the death penalty in a case without referring it to the death increment fiscal accountability committee, the attorney general or one of his or her assistants shall prepare a budget for the prosecution of any case in which the attorney general is requested to seek the death penalty, and shall submit the budget to the death increment fiscal accountability committee. In respect to proceedings in the trial court, the budget shall separate the cost of seeking the death penalty from the cost of prosecuting the case as a first degree murder case with a waiver of the death penalty. It shall also provide estimates of the additional cost of defending the direct appeal, the state post-conviction relief motion and appeal, the federal habeas corpus petition, and ancillary proceedings such as challenges to the method of execution and to the accused's competence to be executed, attributable to any decision to insist on the death penalty. The Missouri state public defender system shall provide an estimate of costs attributable to it if the case proceeds as a capital case, including but not limited to the cost, when applicable, of hiring special public defenders or other outside counsel, experts, or investigators. The committee shall review the budget to assure that it reflects the entire cost to the state of seeking the death penalty in the cases it evaluates in considering the request by the county or the city not within a county;
(4) If the attorney general refers a case to the death increment fiscal accountability committee, he or she shall, after the foregoing review, make a recommendation whether to seek the death penalty in a given case based on the strength of the evidence of the underlying offense, the strength of the statutory aggravating factors in the specific case, the relative importance of the statutory aggravating factors in separating the specific case from homicide cases generally, the information in mitigation available to the committee, the personnel and budgetary needs of the office of the attorney general and the Missouri state public defender system, and the ability of the state to pay the additional cost of seeking the death penalty as opposed to a sentence other than death, including the effect of this expenditure on other programs and services and on the state's creditworthiness. Counsel for the accused shall be entitled, but not required, to make a presentation to the committee before it makes its recommendation. Nothing that counsel for the accused, including the Missouri state public defender system, presents to the committee, including but not limited to budgetary data, mitigation information, attorney-client communications, and attorney work-product, shall be disclosed to anyone other than the committee members who review the case to which it pertains, and no member of the committee shall be eligible to participate in the prosecution of any case that he or she reviews as a member of the committee or under its auspices. Under no circumstances shall the attorney general be required to seek a death penalty;
(5) If the death increment fiscal accountability committee recommends that the attorney general, or one of his or her assistants, assist the prosecuting attorney or circuit attorney in seeking the death penalty in a given case, and the attorney general, in his or her independent professional judgment, decides to follow its recommendation, the county or the city not within a county in which the case arises shall pay into the death increment trust account the added cost of prosecuting the case as a death penalty case in the trial court, as the attorney general has budgeted the cost and as the death increment fiscal accountability committee has approved it. The attorney general shall draw down the costs of seeking the death penalty on a monthly basis. If, when a given case is completed, there remain funds in the death increment trust account that were deposited to cover the costs of seeking death in the case, the county or the city not within a county shall be entitled to a refund of the unexpended funds it paid into the trust account for that case. If the funds in the trust account for a given case are exhausted before the proceedings in the trial court are completed, the county or the city not within a county that sought the attorney general to prosecute the case as a death penalty case shall deposit an additional amount equal to fifty percent of the original death increment budget, or else the attorney general shall waive the death penalty. If the funds in the death increment trust account for a given case are exhausted a second or subsequent time, the county or the city not within a county that sought the attorney general to prosecute the case as a death penalty case shall, whenever at the end of a month the funds in the trust account for the case are exhausted, deposit an additional amount equal to fifty percent of the original death increment budget, or else the attorney general shall waive the death penalty.
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