Flat Lake in Winter by Joseph T. Klempner Page B

before.
    Following Furman, more than two decades passed before New York State enacted a new version of capital punishment, to go into effect in September 1995. Not that the legislature hadn’t tried; but every law they passed in the interim had been effectively, if narrowly, vetoed by a staunchly opposed Democrat governor named Mario Cuomo. It was only with Cuomo’s upset defeat in 1994 at the hands of a conservative, law-and-order Republican, George Pataki, that the way was cleared for the return of capital punishment in New York.
    Accordingly, by the time the legislature put the finishing touches on what would become the state’s new death penalty, it had the considerable advantage of a vast learning curve derived from the various successes and failures of nearly forty other jurisdictions. And the result, as even the most vocal critics of capital punishment must grudgingly admit, is a statute that is about as enlightened as any that might be found, in terms of the protections it affords those it seeks to kill.
    In addition to providing reasonable rates of pay to lawyers appointed to represent those accused of capital crimes, the law recognizes the state’s obligation to see to it that the lawyers are provided the tools that are reasonably necessary to effectively represent their clients. Under this reasoning (which is New York’s reasoning, of course, purely because cases since Furman clearly establish that it is the Supreme Court’s reasoning), the defense is authorized to retain the services of private investigators, psychiatrists and psychologists, consultants, interpreters, social workers, and a host of other experts, all to be reimbursed out of state funds. When appropriate, travel and lodging expenses are covered. If a transcript is needed, the state must pay for it. If photographs are required, a professional photographer may be brought in. If copies of lengthy documents must be made, so be it.
    Not that the law is drawn in such a way as to benefit only the defense. Under a specific provision of the statute, the district attorney prosecuting a capital case is eligible for huge additional infusions of state money, but only for so long as he opts to pursue a death sentence in the case. One can easily be sanguine about a system that seeks to balance available resources between adversaries; but it is equally tempting to be cynical about a law that makes state-sanctioned killing profitable, and to wonder about the message being sent out to prosecutors, particularly those laboring under the strictures of county budgets that are already strained.
    When it comes right down to it, death is not only different, it is also expensive - hugely so. And, as always, it is the taxpayer who ends up footing the bill.
    HAVING SECURED THE NECESSARY signatures from Judge Summerhouse on the afternoon of his first court appearance in the case, Matt Fielder needed to get a team up and running. Looking for a local private investigator, he’d asked around first at the courthouse, then at the jail, and finally at a bar up the block and across the street. The name that kept coming up was that of Pearson J. Gunn, a man who reportedly lived in an A-frame in nearby Tupper Lake, but spent many of his afternoons, and most of his evenings, right there in Cedar Falls. Fielder found the bar, a small place shamelessly called the Dew Drop Inn, and was told by the bartender, a pleasant man who answered to the name Pete, that if he sat down and waited twenty-five minutes, he’d have his chance to meet Gunn right there.
    Sure enough, at exactly four o’clock, the door swung open, causing a cluster of little bells above it to break into a chorus of chimes. They were “bear bells,” Pete had explained when Fielder had first commented on them. You wore them when you were out on the trail, so a bear could hear you coming and have a chance to take his leave. What you didn’t want to do was surprise him.
    Now, without looking up from the glassware he was