When convicted murderer Troy Michael Kell stabbed another inmate to death at the Gunnison prison in 1994, he didn't have a dime.

No problem, though, for Kell. He's getting the best defense somebody else's money can buy.So far, the attorneys representing him and three co-defendants have billed taxpayers for more than $260,000, and a trial is still months away.

Prosecutors and county officials saddled with the bills say restrictive Supreme Court guidelines over who can represent indigent defendants in capital cases have created a tiny monopoly of lawyers who have engaged in price-gouging on an immense scale.

Six such cases in the past three years have run up fees approaching $1 million.

"What you have is a limited pool of attorneys, and they're taking us to the cleaners," said Chief Deputy Utah Attorney General Reed Richards.

"They're just trying to make it easier to kill people," retorted Salt Lake defense attorney Ken Brown. "And the best way to do that is to make sure that poor defendant doesn't have a good attorney. I won't let that happen."

Brown is one of a dozen or so Utah attorneys who qualify under Rule 8 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which outlines minimum requirements for attorneys representing indigent defendants charged with capital crimes.

The justices adopted the rule three years ago in response to growing concerns over the quality of representation death-penalty defendants were receiving outside Salt Lake County.

There is no question the rule has had an impact inside the courtroom; the state has yet to obtain a death penalty in a Rule 8 case. But another potential effect is more subtle.

The Utah attorney general's office is concerned that rural county attorneys - who have a dual role of protecting the county's interests and prosecuting criminals - will be reluctant to file capital homicide charges because of the expense.

"It is potentially a huge conflict," said Assistant Utah Attorney General Scott Reed. "On the one hand, they're trying to kill the guy while at the same time they're negotiating contracts trying to limit the resources of his defense."

With these and other potential problems in mind, the justices in January amended the rule and loosened the qualifications in hopes of expanding the pool of attorneys who can handle the challenge of death penalty cases.

"We bought the logic that the regulations set before were sufficiently stringent that very few lawyers qualified," Chief Justice Michael Zimmerman said in an interview.

The high court reasoned that the limited number of Rule 8 cases provided little opportunity for new attorneys to qualify and expand the pool. But Zimmerman acknowledged that rural concerns and market forces also played a role.

"There were objections from local government that the pool was too small and there were not enough people, which was keeping the prices up," Zimmerman said.

The new rules, however, aren't sitting well with counties and prosecutors, who say the cure may be worse than the disease. Rather than helping cut costs, the revised Rule 8 could cost more.

The new standard includes two significant changes. First, the Supreme Court no longer requires that lawyers appointed to these cases have previously tried a death-penalty case. That provision, more than any other, kept the circle closed, said retired 2nd District Judge David Roth, who headed the high court's committee that recommended the change.

But at the same time, the justices now require a minimum of two attorneys to represent all indigent defendants facing a death penalty.

"I don't get it," said Brent Gardner, a spokesman for the Utah As-sociation of Counties. "First they expand the pool. Then they double our costs. They should have considered the financial impacts."

Roth said the committee's primary concern was making sure that defendants receive adequate representation. Costs were considered, but only in passing. As a practical matter, Roth and Zim-merman believe most judges appoint two attorneys in capital cases anyway.

But not always. Only one attorney was appointed to defend each of the two young men charged with killing Utah Highway Patrol trooper Dennis Lund in Emery County in 1993.

Brown took Jason Scott Pearson's case to trial and spared him the death penalty. Salt Lake lawyer Stephen R. McCaughey negotiated a plea for co-defendant George Todd Kennedy.

Total defense costs fell just short of $200,000.

Review of a half-dozen Rule 8 cases over the past three years reveals that figure, split between the two attorneys, to be on the low side of average. And rural counties are not the only ones being hit hard. Salt Lake County has paid huge sums to defend death-penalty cases that could not be handled by its county-funded Legal Defenders Association due to conflicts.

Two cases, those of David Franklin Young and Tam Nguyen, cost the county $338,069 in defense fees alone - roughly a 10th of the LDA's annual budget. Director F. John Hill pointed out his office handled more than 13,000 cases in 1995, nearly 4,700 of which were felonies. The average cost per case was $384.

The county has three additional Rule 8 cases pending with attorneys fees that will exceed $285,000 if they all go to trial. That figure does not include expenses, which often match or exceed what the lawyers charge.

Defense lawyer Ron Yengich and his law partner, Brad Rich, have two of those three contracts for convicted killer Ronnie Lee Gardner and accused rapist-murderer Michael Scott DeCorso. The charges of price gouging infuriate him.

"I'm always intrigued by people who have never represented a man in a death-penalty case - Judge Zimmerman and the others - who somehow think it's easy," Yengich said. "It requires a tremendous emotional commitment, and you end up putting the rest of your practice aside."

Brown said those who doubt the toll on defense lawyers need only recall that attorneys Edward Brass and Kris Rogers spent the last hour of John Albert Taylor's life last month singing religious hymns with the condemned man before he was shot.

"You tell me how you put a price-tag on that," Brown said. "This is not the sort of thing you do to get wealthy. You do it because you are committed against the state killing people."

"The state doesn't have the emotional baggage," added Mc-Caughey. "All they want to do is kill somebody. What they're saying is, `We should not have to pay somebody to try to stop us from what we want to do.' And that is ludicrous and self-serving in the extreme."

But Reed, who is helping Sanpete County prosecute the Gunnison prison case, said he has to get permission to hire experts. The defense lawyers, he contends, often have an open checkbook.

"There has to be some compromise so that the defendant gets a fair trial and we don't end up with another O.J," he said.

Reed doesn't have a problem with appointing two attorneys, but he suggests a cap on fees or, as one lawmaker is proposing, a fee sched-ule similar to one imposed in the federal courts.

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The bill, sponsored by Rep. Tom Hatch, R-Panguitch, has passed the House and Senate and is now on the way to Gov. Mike Leavitt for signing. Last year, lawmakers did appropriate $250,000 for Sanpete County to help offset the costs of the Gunnison prison prosecutions.

There are other proposed solutions, but none has the full support of any of the players. One would establish a statewide insurance pool for hard-pressed counties.

But the defense attorneys have another idea.

"My solution would be for you to abolish capital punishment," Brass said. "Then paying me wouldn't be necessary."

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