Death Penalty in America, Legal Studies 485, Spring 2003

Cost of Gilbert trial $1.8 million

Springfield Union News, June 16, 2001

 By JUDITH B. CAMERON, Staff Writer

Saturday, June 16, 2001 -- (SPRINGFIELD) - The cost of defending Kristen  H. Gilbert in the federal capital murder case that ended with convictions and life sentences totaled $1.8 million, according to figures released Friday.

Taxpayers will pay the bill because Gilbert was ruled indigent.

The costs incurred by prosecutors will be released at a later date. The cost for stenographers and transcripts was $80,000 and the bill for jurors $125,000.

The money spent for defense lawyers and experts was disclosed by U.S. District Judge Michael A. Ponsor at Gilbert's final sentencing hearing and most likely her last public appearance. She will be imprisoned in Fort Worth, Texas in the maximum security section of the Federal Medical Center, Carswell.

Ponsor ordered consecutive life sentences for the 32-year-old former VA nurse after a jury deadlocked in March over whether she should be executed. Ponsor on Friday imposed a $1.5 million fine and ordered Gilbert to pay $29,933 in restitution to family members of three of her victims as well as for victims services provide by the state.

Even though Friday's court session was a formality, several onlookers and many family members of the veterans who died under Gilbert's care at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Northampton attended the session in the fifth floor courtroom.

Richard and Claudia Strickland, Gilbert's parents, and Gertrude Strickland, 78, Gilbert's grandmother, also were present for the 80 minute session. Gilbert, who appeared pale and heavier since her convictions, declined to address the court and appeared not to acknowledge family members of the veterans who all died unexpectedly of cardiac arrest.

Gilbert was found guilty -of poisoning four of her patients with epinephrine, a heart stimulant, and attempting to poison two others. She has maintained her innocence and claimed at her trial that the veterans died a natural death.

Ponsor acknowledged that the consecutive life sentences and the fine, with interest, were largely symbolic but necessary for the "full punitive effect."  

In a memo attached to the list of financial costs, Ponsor said that the fees paid to Gilbert's attorneys were substantial but "for a trial this length, complexity and seriousness were entirely reasonable."

Harry Miles, who has represented Gilbert since February, 1996 when Gilbert became a suspect in the string of unusual deaths, was paid $654,989; David Hoose, who was appointed to defend Gilbert in December, 1998, was paid $369,564; and Paul Weinberg, who joined the defense team in December, 2000 was paid $104,005. Some of the fees paid to Miles included work done by Weinberg before he was officially designated a defense lawyer. 

The lawyers were paid $125 an hour. The federal death penalty law, which Gilbert was prosecuted under because the crimes occurred on federal property, also provide for up to three defense attorneys. 

Miles said Friday, "When someone's life is at stake it's all the more important that they get a fair trial."

Preparation for the trial and the trial itself, which began in November and ended in March, was grueling, Miles said. "It was a whole year, at least, out of my life," he said.

The cost of experts hired by defense lawyers totaled $532,930. The largest amounts went to Anita Sarro, a lawyer and registered nurse who worked as a consultant, $87,635; Philip Kass, a private investigator, $66,134; and Ashraf Mozayani, a toxicologist, $65,956.

Ponsor said that there were several safeguards against reckless and overspending of defense funds.

He said he approved the defense budget, which was reviewed by the administrative office of the U.S. Courts and by David I. Bruck, of the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel in Columbia, South Carolina.

The amounts allocated for experts were approved by Ponsor and a judge from the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

The experts, Ponsor said, were "essential to ensure that the defendant received a fair trial."

The cost of defense experts

The following is a list of fees and expenses for defense experts in the Kristen H. Gilbert capital murder trial:

H. Thomas Aretz, cardiac pathologist, $14,937. 

Beth Bochnak, jury consultant, $36,010.

Phillip Barron, mitigation specialist, $5,133.

Edward Bronson, venue analyst, $9,525.

George Cobb, statistician, $8,406.

Mary Fago, nursing consultant, $2,040.

Michael Gelbort, neuropsychologist, $5,547.

Seymour Halleck, psychiatrist, $8,400.

Graham R. Jones, toxicologist, $31,423.

Steven B. Karch, cardiolgist/emergency medicine, $27,074.

PhilipKass, investigator, $66,134.

James Kirchhoffer, cardiologist, $54,418.

Thomas Kirtpatrick, investigator, $47,410.

Ashraf Mozayani, toxicologist, $65,956.

Jonathan Pincus, behavioral psychologist, $5,000.

Anita Sarro, nursing/legal consultant, $87,635.

Paige Tarr, mitigation specialist, $21,350.

David Tetrault, mitigation specialist, $1,319.

Janet Vogelsang, mitigation specialist, $35,204.

Gilbert jury consultant got $82,946
Springfield Union News, April 2, 2002

By JUDITH B. CAMERON, Staff Writer

SPRINGFIELD - Prosecutors who won convictions in the Kristen H. Gilbert murder case spent $264,512 on experts, including $82,946 for a jury consultant.

Gilbert, formerly of Easthampton and Northampton, was found guilty March 14, 2001 of murdering four patients at the VA Hospital in Leeds by injecting them with overdoses of the heart stimulant epinephrine. Gilbert, 34, was sentenced to four consecutive life terms and is serving her sentence at a federal maximum security prison in Fort Worth, Texas.

The costs for the experts and related expenses in the five-month trial that was held in U.S. District Court in Springfield were released Monday, in response to the Gazette's request for the information a year ago under the federal Freedom of Information Act.

The figures released by the U.S. Department of Justice show that prosecutors spent $242,427 on nine experts and $22,085 on fees, travel, lodging and transportation for  witnesses.

Only two of the witnesses, Dr. Thomas Graboys, a cardiologist, and Dr. Michael Baden, a pathologist, testified at the trial.

Graboys, who works for the Roxbury VA, was paid $24,675 and was the government's key cardiologist, testifying that the deaths of the veterans from sudden cardiac arrest likely were caused by high dosages of epinephrine.

Baden, a well-known forensic pathologist, supervised the exhumation of the bodies of three veterans and was paid $14,150. Baden testified that the most probable cause of death was epinephrine poisoning.

The highest paid expert was Jeffery Frederick, the jury consultant who received $82,946 for work in advising Assistant U.S. Attorneys William M. Welch and Ariane Vuono in finding 12 jurors from an original pool of 600.

National Medical Services, the private forensic laboratory in Philadelphia that botched tests on whether the bodies of the victims had high amounts of epinephrine at the time of death, was paid $65,700. Officials from the firm did not testify before the jury.

The laboratory and Baden were paid by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, according to the statement on costs.

Stephen Gehlbach, an epidemiologist and dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Massachusetts, was paid $8,400 by the government, according to the newly released figures; Dr. Jeffery Kaufman, a vascular surgeon, was paid $2,000; Dr. Kim Krach, a specialist in emergency medicine, was paid $1,125; Dr. Eric Prystowsky, a cardiologist, was paid $4,750; and Dr. Alan Wu, a toxicologist, was paid $4,400.

The costs do not include the salaries of the prosecutors or their two investigators.

The defense of Gilbert cost $1.6 million, including $532,930 for experts and investigators. At $125 an hour, attorneysA financial statement from the defense was released last June.

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