Vaughn lawyers could cost county $250K

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Christopher Vaughn

Updated: September 29, 2011 12:30AM

JOLIET — If private lawyers for accused murderer Christopher Vaughn stay on his defense team, it would cost Will County more than $250,000 to pay their bills.

Gerald Kielian, of Joliet, and John Rogers, of St. Louis, were being paid out of the state’s capital litigation fund. But that fund is being phased out now that the state has abolished the death penalty.

On Tuesday, the attorneys might ask Judge Dan Rozak to keep them on the case and shift the payment burden from the state to the county, said Chief Judge Gerald Kinney. But Kinney said Thursday that he isn’t sure the lawyers will pursue that option now that he told them their estimated budget doesn’t seem financially feasible.

Rogers would not comment Thursday on the possible request. Kielian could not be reached for comment.

Vaughn had faced the death penalty after he was charged with murdering his wife and three children in Channahon Township in June 2007. Will County State’s Attorney Jim Glasgow immediately decertified the case for the death penalty when Gov. Pat Quinn signed a law banning executions in March.

Glasgow said there is no way the Vaughn case would have started, let alone wrapped up, by the June 30 fund deadline. Also, Glasgow said it was not right “morally, legally or ethically” to continue to seek the death penalty, a punishment that no longer exists in Illinois, just to have access to the fund. Leaving the case a death penalty case also would have allowed the attorneys to bill for things that aren’t allowed in regular murder cases, he explained.

Kinney said if the lawyers ask to be retained, he doubts Rozak will rule in their favor because the public defender’s office is more than capable of handling the case. Kinney said the office has a group of private trial lawyers available who are used for high-profile murder cases.

Switching lawyers now will delay Vaughn’s trial by at least a year, and it will increase the county’s cost for expert witnesses, Kinney admitted. But it’s still the best choice, he said.

“Obviously, it will take them some time to get acquainted with all of the facts,” he said of the assistant public defenders. “That delay may be unavoidable.”

Some counties, including Monroe and LaSalle, have not decertified death penalty cases so defense attorneys can continue to be paid from the fund, said Catie Sheehan, a deputy press secretary for the Illinois Treasurer’s Office, which oversees the fund.

The fund, which has about $3 million left, will continue to pay out until Jan. 1, but only for work done prior to July 1, she said.

Vaughn is accused of murdering his wife, Kimberly, 34, and children Abigayle, 12; Cassandra, 11; and Blake, 8.

Vaughn’s defense is that his wife was depressed and suicidal and that she shot him in the leg while the family’s SUV was parked along a frontage road. She turned the gun on her children and herself when he fled the vehicle, he told authorities.

At the time of the murders, the family lived in Oswego and Vaughn worked as a private investigator. The family was en route to a Springfield water park when the shootings happened.