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. The justices and their staffs spend numerous hours reading lengthy briefs and other documents filed. Due to the nature of the sentence, every minute detail of every assertion, request, piece of evidence, or conclusion is analyzed with punctilious care. In addition, Washington State Supreme Court review not infrequently results in additional trial level hearings in the county where the case originated.