George “Pete” Wallace and Wyona Chandlee paid for a criminal’s greed with their lives.

Now Douglas County taxpayers could spend more than $1 million on legal bills in Douglas County’s first capital-murder case since Kansas reinstated the death penalty in 1994.

“It’s sickening,” said Jere McElhaney, a county commissioner. “It’s not fair. It’s just the most aggravating thing there is, that these defendants get a free ride in their defense trials, and that for the prosecution we have to pick up the entire cost through our own county budget.

“I kind of feel like we’re victims, too.”

The financial pain of seeking the death penalty is dawning on McElhaney and his fellow commissioners, who fear the county’s budgets for court security, expert testimony, jury formation and other judicial costs won’t be big enough to handle the case of the State of Kansas v. Damien C. Lewis.

Lewis, a parolee, is charged with a July break-in at a residence on Learnard Avenue that led to the shooting deaths of Wallace and Chandlee. His trial is to begin Oct. 27.

The criminal charges have commissioners pondering the value of the coming legal costs of prosecuting a capital crime. They come as the county grapples with a $1.7 million budget shortfall that already has forced commissioners to endorse $1.5 million in cuts.

The district attorney’s budget is being spared cuts this year, given the added expense of prosecuting the Lewis case and handling likely appeals. But other programs are being reduced, including road maintenance, construction projects and 12 current or future employees.

At least one commissioner is questioning whether seeking the death penalty is worth the added expense to taxpayers.

Worthwhile ‘vengeance?’

Commissioner Charles Jones said focusing the county’s resources so intently on a single case could shortchange other criminal proceedings, such as those involving domestic violence, willful damage to property or anything else that requires a sheriff’s deputy, district attorney or district court judge.

“We talk about buying an $18,000 tractor before we buy the $18,000 tractor,” Commissioner Charles Jones said. “The difference between making charges from ‘hard 50’ to the death penalty could be $500,000, $1 million. …

“That extra measure of justice or vengeance — however you want to call it — is not worth all the sacrifices you’ll have to make.”

Cost did not play a role in the decision to seek the death penalty against Lewis, said Dist. Atty. Christine Kenney. Nor should it.

“I don’t think anyone involved will say that justice has a price, that there’s a cap on that,” Kenney said. “And they shouldn’t. … I would never let budgetary concerns dictate a decision I make on any case.”

She said the district attorney’s office would continue to pursue its regular caseload. Each year the office typically files more than 2,000 adult criminal cases, 500 juvenile cases and 4,000 traffic cases.

One capital murder case may dominate the schedules of two staff attorneys full time, Kenney said, but they’re on salary and don’t command overtime compensation.

“We are about as close to maximum capacity as I can imagine,” she said. “When it comes to the research and writing the motions, when we have two people assigned to it the rest of the office will have to fill in the gaps.”

Working overtime

That’s what happened in Wichita, where Dist. Atty. Nola Foulston’s staff prosecuted and secured death-penalty convictions for Reginald and Jonathan Carr. The trial lasted weeks, hundreds of jurors were called and extra deputies went to court.

In the end, Foulston’s bill for direct costs amounted to $23,835.33. But officials acknowledged the real costs amounted to much more, as two attorneys were assigned to the case full time — and then some.

“They literally put thousands of hours in on this case — nights, weekends, till 2 a.m.,” said Jeanette Clary, the office’s chief executive officer. “They’re salaried attorneys, and they do whatever they have to do to complete the job.”

Direct costs start to pile up more when it relates to courts and security.

Gathering, screening and selecting a jury could cost from $24,000 to $75,000, said Linda Koester-Vogelsang, administrator for Douglas County District Court.

Such costs would cover the $10 daily stipend provided to jurors, plus payments for mileage and parking. Officials say they may need to print as many as 1,200 questionnaires — each 50 pages long — to screen jurors before trial.

Those are just the easy-to-anticipate expenses, she said. There’s also the matter of keeping jurors secure, possibly finding another judge to handle excess cases and lining up court reporters to compile trial transcripts and make printouts.

The transcript for Lewis’ three-day preliminary hearing cost $1,000.

“For the court it could be $100,000 plus,” Koester-Vogelsang said. “It could be less, we don’t know.”

¢ Kansans pay high price for death penalty, opponents say (1-19-03)¢ Stories about the double slaying of a Lawrence couple¢ Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty¢ The Death Penalty: A Kansan’s Guide (Amnesty International)

‘Staggering’ costs

Mike McLain, court administrator in Johnson County, said court officials recently rang up about $80,000 in jury expenses in connection with the murder trial of John Robinson, who was convicted of three murders and sentenced to death. That’s up from a typical $1,500 to $3,000 cost for a jury trial.

Bringing in witnesses and experts in the Robinson trial cost at least $35,000 more.

But the court’s costs paled in comparison to the more than $770,000 spent on Robinson’s defense, which was covered by a state death penalty defense fund, McLain said.

“It’s all pretty staggering, compared to what a normal jury trial costs,” he said.

Douglas County Sheriff Rick Trapp said he was prepared for the anticipated costs.

He intends to line up extra security for the Lewis trial. The added expense for that should range from $5,000 to $7,000 for overtime pay, depending on the length of the trial and what other problems arise elsewhere in the county.

But like Koester-Vogelsang and Kenney, Trapp said he knows there are other costs that could surface later. And that would bump his cost estimates even higher.

“Don’t even ask me what happens if they sequester the jury,” Trapp said. “I wouldn’t even venture a guess. In the coming months we’d be looking at that.”

Such concerns are what have commissioners Jones, McElhaney and Bob Johnson preparing for a worst-case scenario: $500,000, $1 million or even $2 million in costs by the time it’s all done.

County reserve funds can be used to cover the trial’s excess costs, Johnson said, should they materialize. But future decisions about prosecutions could be ruled by dollars and cents.

“We will provide the money that we can,” Johnson said. “And then, clearly, when it becomes a case where they don’t have enough money to prosecute all cases, somebody’s going to have to decide: Can we afford to do this? That’s a tough issue.”