The Last Illinois Capital Prosecution

Today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports, "Illinois spent $1.1 million on Coleman case."  It's by Nicholas J.C. Pistor.

Illinois taxpayers spent more than $1.1 million for the defense and prosecution of Christopher Coleman, the former bodyguard who was sentenced to three life terms for strangling his wife and two young sons in 2009.

The money will be some of the last spent from the state's controversial Capital Litigation Fund. The fund, established in 1999, will be terminated at the end of the year because Illinois has abolished the death penalty.

The fund was created with the intent of ensuring fair trials for capital murder defendants. But it also has helped many counties, particularly those with small budgets, afford expensive capital cases by shifting the financial burden to state government.

To preserve that feature, state Rep. Bill Mitchell, R-Forsyth, has proposed legislation to create a similar fund to pay for some first-degree murder cases.

Monroe County State's Attorney Kris Reitz had sought a death sentence in the Coleman case and pressed forward even though Gov. Pat Quinn promised to commute any such sentence until the death penalty abolishment took effect.

That meant Reitz's county could avoid most of the major costs of the trial.

Coleman was convicted by a jury on three counts of first-degree murder. He then waived a jury decision on the penalty and was sentenced in May to life terms by Circuit Judge Milton Wharton.

The $1.1 million total spent by the state on the Coleman trial — $868,787 for the defense, $259,020 for the prosecution — was larger than the $500,000 to $700,000 average range the state paid for death penalty cases. It also dwarfs the $649,392 that Monroe County spent on judiciary and court-related expenses in all of 2010, according to records. Monroe County has a population of about 33,000.

Without the death penalty fund, the county would have had to find other ways to pay for the lawyers, investigators and psychiatrists who worked on the case.

John O'Gara, a lawyer representing Coleman, had asked for the trial to be put on hold until the death penalty issue was sorted out, in part, he said, to save the money.

Without the death penalty, defense lawyers wouldn't have needed to prepare testimony for a possible lengthy mitigation phase, which often requires expensive witnesses.

Related posts are in the cost index.