The New Mexico Supreme Court halt­ed a death penal­ty case against 2 prison inmates charged with killing a guard dur­ing a 1999 riot because the defense has received insuf­fi­cient fund­ing to pro­ceed. ​“Defense coun­sels’ com­pen­sa­tion is inad­e­quate under the facts of this case, vio­lat­ing defen­dants’ Sixth Amendment right to effec­tive assis­tance of coun­sel,” the court said in a unan­i­mous rul­ing. The court held that an addi­tion­al $200,000 must be appro­pri­at­ed by the leg­is­la­ture before the case can move ahead.

Contracts with the defense team expired in November 2003, and the attor­neys have not been paid since then although they have con­tin­ued to work on the case. The attor­ney gen­er­al’s office said enough fund­ing has been allo­cat­ed to cov­er the costs of attor­neys con­tract­ed to rep­re­sent the defen­dants, but the defense team argues that the state has pro­vid­ed only half the funds need­ed to ade­quate­ly rep­re­sent their clients. In light of the fund­ing short­age, they have asked the New Mexico Supreme Court to allow them to with­draw from the case, order the state to pay them more, or dis­miss the death penal­ty charge against their clients.

A spokesman for Governor Bill Richardson said the gov­er­nor’s office must review the court’s rul­ing before decid­ing whether to seek addi­tion­al funds for the case. The admin­is­tra­tion would need to request the addi­tion­al funds from the Legislature, which con­venes in January 2008 for a 30-day ses­sion.
(Las Cruces Sun-News, October 26, 2007). See Costs and Representation.

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