The effort and cost required to pursue death penalty appeals has increased dramatically during the past nineteen years, particularly after the 1991 U.S. Supreme Court McClesky decision and the 1996 passage of the federal Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. For example, state appellate capital case briefs averaged 50 pages ten years ago, but now number 250 pages. Defense attorneys, who traditionally keep time records for billing purposes, reported 1,167 attorney hours for the Lord personal restraint petition, and over 3,000 hours for both the Gentry and Brett personal restraint petitions- or over 75 weeks of attorney time.
County prosecutors prepare with equal intensity.
Prosecutor costs in the 1980s and 1990s are hard to quantify because they are paid by individual counties rather than by the state, but counties report that one or more experienced higher-level deputy prosecutors often spend many, many months largely concentrating on a single death penalty appellate case. State-paid indigent defense attorney fees are better documented. Judicial costs are also high. Washington State Supreme Court death penalty cases involve enormous records, often numbering ten thousand pages or more. Death penalty appeals are frequently assigned four hours for oral argument, four times the norm for criminal appeals.