Utah County faces steep costs in rise of capital murder cases

SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — Three high-profile death penalty cases are costing Utah County taxpayers millions of dollars, and records show the financial burden could have been reduced if the county had been accepted into a state fund designed to help pay those legal bills.

“We’re going to approve over $1 million today in expenses for an event that we didn’t want,” one Utah County commissioner said in a recent public meeting. “None of us wanted, and it happened to be here, and our taxpayers will now foot the bill.”

The most recent case involves Tyler Robinson, accused of shooting and killing Charlie Kirk earlier this year. So far, more than $1 million has been approved to cover the cost of prosecuting and defending Robinson.

But Robinson’s isn’t the only case draining county resources. Utah County is also footing the bill to defend Michael Jayne, accused of killing Sgt. Bill Hooser in 2024, and to retry Douglas Carter, charged with murdering a woman in Provo back in 1985.

“These types of cases are among the most expensive a county can face,” said Skye Lazaro, a criminal defense attorney. “They cost multiple times more than a regular prosecution and defense of a non-capital case.”

Lazaro explained that death penalty cases require highly specialized Rule 8-qualified attorneys, along with more experts, more investigations, and extra legal safeguards. Contract records obtained through a GRAMA request show just how quickly those costs add up. For Carter’s case, defense attorneys are capped at $200,000, with another $140,000 available for investigators and specialists. Jayne’s defense carries a similar price tag.

“The $200,000 is just for billable attorney hours,” Lazaro said. “Then you have to add all the additional expenses, and that’s in both agreements.”

So why didn’t Utah County seek help from the state’s Indigent Aggravated Murder Defense Fund, a resource already used by more than 20 of Utah’s 29 counties? According to Utah County Commissioner Amelia Powers Gardner, they tried to. Gardner, who described the fund like an insurance pool for counties, said the county commission saw the need and applied in June 2024, but the application went nowhere.

“When we submitted our application, it was just never accepted,” she said. According to Gardner, someone outside of Utah County gave incorrect information to the state Indigent Defense Commission, claiming the county had nine pending capital cases, when there were only four.

“They were told that letting Utah County join would bankrupt their fund,” she said. “The arguments against us were misrepresented, and we never got a chance to clarify them.”

But the fund’s executive director, Matthew Barraza, disputed that version of events. In a written statement, he said the application was never rejected. They were simply waiting on Utah County to respond to follow-up questions. “There was never any official decision, as we were waiting for their response,” Barraza wrote.

Had the county joined, the cost would have been substantial up front. About $1 million to cover its share for the previous two years and 2024, with an estimated $350,000 annual contribution after that.

Gardner said the county had already budgeted for it. “We had set aside the million dollars to pay into that pool,” she said. “But we ended up having to use that money to hire counsel to represent those cases.”

Looking at the costs to join the fund and the budgets of the cases, it appears Utah County taxpayers would have saved a significant amount of money had the county joined the fund in 2024. Something Lazaro confirmed, adding, “If these three cases go to trial through a penalty phase where the death penalty is elected, I think we can be reasonably certain that we would exceed those numbers.

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