‘Tremendous costs to the taxpayers’: Disagreement over paying for Scott Peterson’s lawyer
The family of Scott Peterson hired and paid for his Los Angeles-based attorney Mark Geragos during his first trial in 2004. For his second chance at freedom, it looks like Stanislaus County taxpayers could foot the bill.
But who will represent Peterson and at what expense remains to be seen.
Pat Harris, who served as second chair during the first trial, has been acting as Peterson’s attorney since his case was sent back to San Mateo Superior Court last year.
Peterson is indigent and has a right to be appointed an attorney.
His sister-in-law, Janey Peterson, said he was indigent during the first trial, too, but his family pulled together the funds to pay for his defense.
“It took a very long time to recover from that financially,” she said. “We can’t take that twice.”
Harris filed a motion May 10 to be appointed as Scott Peterson’s attorney, which, if approved, would mean his services would be paid for by Stanislaus County at a rate of at least $125 an hour.
Assistant County Counsel Rob Taro filed an opposition to the motion on Monday, saying Harris hasn’t given adequate showing that Peterson is entitled to appointed counsel as opposed to an attorney from the public defender’s office or a conflict attorney that contracts with the county. Taro asked that the motion be denied and the Public Defender appointed.
“To allow Mr. Harris to represent the defendant at the public’s expense would be contrary to the law and has the potential to open the floodgates for such requests at tremendous costs to the taxpayers of Stanislaus County,” Taro wrote.
Public defender a more inexpensive alternative?
In contrast to the fee schedule for an appointed attorney, a topped out deputy public defender is paid $73.87 an hour and the office’s expenses are already factored into the county budget each year.
In accordance with the law, If the Public Defender’s Office has a conflict of interest, a private law firm provides indigent defense at a fixed annual rate through a contract with the county.
Bruce Perry’s law firm was awarded the contract for conflict services in 2019 with a maximum compensation of $9.1 million over the three-year life of the contract.
“It is advantageous for the county to keep a majority of cases within the Public Defender’s Office and the conflicts contracts where the total cost to the county is fixed as (appointed) attorneys bill on an hourly basis where costs can vary greatly,” reads a Board of Supervisors agenda item from when the contract was approved.
Since then, “The court rarely appoints an individual attorney to represent an indigent defendant in a criminal case,” said Stanislaus Court Executive Officer Hugh Swift.
An analysis by the county from expenditures in fiscal year 2015-16 found that it paid out an average of $14,384 more per case to hourly-rate court appointed attorneys than to contracted conflict attorneys.
But Harris, in his motion, argues that it would cost the county far more to use a public defender or conflict attorney because none are intimately involved with the case like he is.
“Counsel will have to be appointed in this case as the public defender has a conflict and even if they did not, it would likely take years to get up to speed in order to try the case,” Harris wrote. “The same holds true for any other appointed attorney and because of this, it would likely be much more costly while delaying the trial for a lengthy period.”
Harris said in an email to The Bee on Friday that he’s spoken to Perry about his possible appointment.
“I cannot discuss the details of the discussions that I have had with Mr. Perry but it will cost far less to appoint me than appointing or hiring a contract attorney,” he said.
He said he has already dedicated more than 100 hours, made four court appearances and requested discovery on the case since it was remanded back to Superior Court last year.
In August, the California Supreme Court overturned Peterson’s death sentence for the murder of his wife, Laci, and their unborn son, Conner, because it said the trial judge erred by excluding potential jurors opposed to the death penalty.
In a separate matter, the court in October also ruled that a trial court must decide whether one of the jurors intentionally withheld information on a questionnaire in order to get on the jury.
Stanislaus County to retry penalty phase
The Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office has said it plans to retry the penalty phase of the trial; if a judge finds that juror misconduct occurred, Peterson could get a whole new trial over the question of his guilt.
Both matters were remanded back to San Mateo Superior Court, where the original trial was held due to the enormous pretrial publicity in Stanislaus County.
But while there was still confusion over jurisdiction, one hearing was held in Stanislaus Superior Court in October.
During that hearing, Judge Nancy Leo said the public defender had been appointed to represent Peterson and asked Harris about his involvement.
“I am going to be representing Mr. Peterson as private counsel,” Harris replied.
Leo relieved the public defender and Harris later in the hearing mentioned he thought “we would be dealing with my appointment;” but the issue wasn’t brought up again.
Harris said in his motion he was under the impression he had been appointed counsel but was later told that was not the case.
Under Stanislaus Superior Court’s fee schedule, appointed attorneys handling death penalty cases are paid $125 an hour. That means the bill so far for Peterson’s defense is at $12,500 and the case hasn’t even gone to trial.
There is no maximum a court appointed attorney can be paid in a year and the case will get costlier as it goes to trial.
Even privately retained attorneys can be reimbursed by the county for trial costs like expert witnesses. Geragos was reimbursed $229,000 for experts who testified during his 2004 trial, according to Bee archives.
Harris’ motion to be appointed was served to Taro and Chief Deputy District Attorney Dave Harris, who is prosecuting the case.
Judge Anne-Christine Massullo told Pat Harris during Peterson’s last hearing in April that if there was any opposition to his appointment, a hearing would be held before she made a ruling.
No hearing had been scheduled as of Tuesday.
This story was originally published May 19, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
