Illinois public defenders plead poverty to try to thwart capital prosecution

The Chicago Tribune has this notable article today, headined “Death penalty fund: Public defenders say they’re out of money and can’t defend man in death penalty case: State funds for this year have already run out.”  Here are some excerpts:

In a novel legal move, court-appointed attorneys for a man charged in a double murder want the state barred from seeking the death penalty because a state fund to pay for the defense of capital cases has run out of money.

Without the funds, Assistant Public Defender Marijane Placek said, her office would be unable to pay for the help of expert witnesses, depriving her client, Brian Gilbert, of an adequate defense. Gilbert is charged in the 2007 fatal stabbing of his girlfriend’s two sons, Marquise, 12, and Quinton Jackson, 14, after a quarrel over housework….

In a motion filed Wednesday, Placek informed Circuit Judge Thomas Gainer Jr. that the public defender’s annual allotment in the fund had been used up.  She wrote that Gilbert has a long-standing, severe mental illness and that the case will require a massive amount of work to prepare for trial.  “We have no money to defend the death penalty,” Placek said Thursday in an interview. “And for this reason, our client can’t get a fair trial.”…

Placek’s motion is the first of its kind for the public defender’s office but probably not the last, said Assistant Public Defender Julie Harmon, the office’s capital case coordinator.  But she denied it’s a new legal tactic to remove the threat of the death penalty for clients.  “It’s not a strategy. It’s a response to a situation,” Harmon said.  “We may have to do it in multiple cases as the need arises. If there’s a reason we can’t do our job, we’re going to file the motion.”…

“We’ve never had this difficult of a situation before,” Harmon said.  “Last [year] it got ugly at about the end of April, but we were able to prevail on our witnesses and experts, saying, ‘OK, we’ll be able to get you paid in September or October.’ But then they … still aren’t paid in full.  They’ve just gotten fed up.  They’re telling us they’re not going to take anymore cases or they’re going to do the bare minimum.”

Sally Daly, spokeswoman for the Cook County state’s attorney’s office, said prosecutors intend to oppose the motion.