Assembly Panel Stops Bill on Disclosing Costs in Death-Penalty Cases

The cost to the public of defending indigent murder suspects who could be sentenced to death or life in prison without possibility of parole should remain secret, an Assembly committee decided Monday.

The Assembly Public Safety Committee, acting without debate, rejected an Orange County lawmaker’s bill that would have required courts to disclose the costs of helping attorneys prepare their clients’ defenses in capital murder cases.

Sen. Ed Royce (R-Anaheim) said his measure was prompted in part by estimates that defense costs in the Orange County murder trial of Randy Steven Kraft will probably total more than $2 million. The judge in that trial has sealed all documents relating to attorneys’ requests for funds to defend Kraft, who was judged too poor to pay for his own attorney.

Kraft, 42, has been charged with 16 murders; prosecutors have also accused him of committing at least 21 more. Lawyers for the Orange County district attorney’s office have said they will seek the death penalty for Kraft if he is convicted.

ACLU Opposed Measure

Royce blamed the American Civil Liberties Union for defeating his measure.

The bill, which would have required disclosure of defense costs after a trial but while appeals were still pending, sailed through the Senate Judiciary Committee and the full Senate without a negative vote. But Monday’s vote in the Assembly Public Safety Committee was 3-2 in favor of the bill, one short of the number needed for passage.

“This committee is known as the graveyard of tough crime bills,” Royce said. “It seems there is virtually nothing that can be done that breaks the ACLU’s control over this committee.”

The ACLU was joined in its opposition Monday by the California Public Defenders Assn. and the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, who argued that disclosing costs could give prosecutors an unfair advantage by providing clues to the defense attorney’s strategy.

“We are creating a problem by permitting the kind of disclosure the bill contemplates,” said Michael Millman, a representative of Attorneys for Criminal Justice. “What we would be telling the public is how much money would be disbursed without explaining in any way why it is disbursed. The next step is people are going to be wanting that further information. It’s just building in an inherent conflict.”

Itemization Dropped

Royce said his bill originally called for full disclosure of costs, including an itemization on what the money funded. He said he removed that section to appease opponents in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“We do not attempt to disclose specifically what the funds went for; we disclose the amount of money spent,” he said. “If the public can’t get access to this bit of information, it is certainly the only piece of information in state government that I know of that the public does not have a right to see.”