It's long been thought that the difference in resources between prosecutors and public defenders has distorted justices, especially where death penalty cases are concerned. Shouldn't the government be just as generous with defending a person who is presumed innocent as they are with prosecuting them? In Philadelphia, the Defender Association of Philadelphia does get the same level of funding when it comes to capital cases - and after 11 years, not one person being defended as gotten the death penalty.

David B. Caruso writes:

Lawyers say the Defender Association of Philadelphia's track record - in a city that annually ranks near the top in use of the death penalty - is proof that when it comes to capital punishment, the difference between life and death for a convicted killer can be a matter of dollars and cents.

With 215 attorneys on staff, the Defenders Association is equipped with resources usually available only to prosecutors. Every capital murder client gets two lawyers and a private investigator. A team of psychologists and "mitigation experts" hunt for evidence that might sway jurors against a death sentence.

By comparison, the court-appointed private lawyers who still handle four out of every five murder cases in Philadelphia sometimes get as little as $2,000 to defray expenses, plus $400 in fees for each day of trial. All 61 people condemned to death in Philadelphia since the Defenders Association began handling capital cases in 1993 were represented by private attorneys.

Whether you favor the death penalty or you oppose it, I really think that this is a basic matter of fairness: if the government is going to charge a poor person with murder and threaten to take their life, then the government should be just as diligent when it comes to giving that person an adequate defense as they are with giving them an adequate prosecution. There is no excuse for funding prosecutors well but defenders poorly.

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