Muskegon Chronicle -

MICHIGAN: Death-penalty case defense cost $730,000

The cost of defending Marvin Gabrion in West Michigan's 1st death-penalty case was $730,168, with most of the money going to his lawyers.

David Stebbins of Ohio, who specializes in death-penalty defense, was paid $313,866. Gabrion's lead attorney, Paul Mitchell of Grand Rapids, received $223,386, according to figures released by U.S. District Court.

 Mitchell and Stebbins were each paid $125 an hour to represent Gabrion, who was convicted and sentenced to death in March for the murder of a young woman in a federally owned lake. The entire cost of the defense was absorbed by taxpayers.

 The unprecedented trial and death-penalty phase lasted three weeks. But Mitchell and Stebbins were on the job since summer 1999, when Gabrion was charged with Rachel Timmerman's death and they were appointed to the case.

 "I make no apologies to the people," Mitchell said Thursday. "Regardless of who the man is, he deserves the very best defense that can be mustered."

 A year before trial, the U.S. Justice Department said it would seek the death penalty, a decision that had a significant impact on costs. Stebbins and others on the defense team would have dropped out if the government had decided to seek life in prison.

Gabrion's lawyers didn't have a blank check. Their budgets had to be approved by West Michigan's chief federal judge and the chief judge on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.

 "I watched this thing like a hawk. I'm a taxpayer, too," U.S. Chief District Judge Robert Holmes Bell said. "But on the other side, you must afford a person facing the death penalty all the counsel you can give him.

 "When the dust settles, you want to be sure that he had a fair trial, competent counsel and the tools to assist him, which the Constitution requires," Bell said.

 The expenses included $94,559 to hire James Crates, an investigator, who hunted for evidence that might persuade the jury to spare Gabrion, 48, from a death sentence, including his childhood and family life. Another investigator, Patricia Hubbard, was paid $42,882.

 A neurologist from Ohio State University, Dr. Douglas Scharre, received $21,212. He studied Gabrion's brain and said his bizarre behavior over many years could have been linked to car and motorcycle wrecks. The jury disagreed.

 Unlike the defense, the government has not provided a precise accounting of the Gabrion prosecution.

 The U.S. Attorney's Office in Grand Rapids said it spent at least $316,201. But the figure does not include staff salaries or the FBI's investigative costs. 3 prosecutors worked on the case.

 Much of that amount is the government's share of dredging a secluded lake in the Manistee National Forest, where authorities believed other victims might be found. Nothing was discovered.