34 U.S.C. § 60301 — Capital representation improvement grants

(a) In general — The Attorney General must award grants to states to improve the quality of legal representation given to indigent defendants in state capital cases. (b) Defined term — "Legal representation" means legal counsel plus the investigative, expert, and other services needed for competent representation. (c) Use of funds — Grants must (1) fund an effective system providing competent representation to (A) indigents charged with a capital offense, (B) indigents sentenced to death seeking appellate or collateral relief in state court, and (C) indigents sentenced to death seeking review in the U.S. Supreme Court; and (2) can't fund representation in any specific capital case, directly or indirectly. (d) Apportionment of funds. (1) In general — Of grant funds, (A) at least 75 percent must go to the purpose in (c)(1)(A), and (B) no more than 25 percent to the purpose in (c)(1)(B). (2) Waiver — The Attorney General may waive this apportionment for good cause. (e) Effective system — For subsection (c)(1), an effective system for competent representation is one that (1) gives responsibility for appointing qualified capital-case attorneys to (A) a public defender program using staff attorneys, private-bar members, or both; (B) an entity created by statute or by the state's highest court, made up of people with proven capital-case knowledge and expertise, except current prosecutors; or (C) a procedure set by statute before October 30, 2004, under which the trial judge appoints attorneys from a roster kept by a state or regional selection committee or similar entity; and (2) requires that program, entity, or committee to (A) set qualifications for attorneys who may be appointed to capital cases; (B) build and maintain a roster of qualified attorneys; (C) — except for a selection committee described in (1)(C) — assign 2 roster attorneys to each indigent capital case, or give the trial judge up to 2 attorney pairs to choose from, though a court may allow a single attorney if the state isn't seeking the death penalty and competent representation is still ensured; (D) run, sponsor, or approve specialized training for capital-case attorneys; (E)(i) monitor appointed attorneys' performance and training attendance, and (ii) remove from the roster any attorney who (I) fails to give effective representation or acts unethically, (II) doesn't meet the program's training-participation requirements, or (III) was sanctioned in the past 5 years by a bar association or court for ethical misconduct as defense counsel in a criminal case; and (F) fund competent representation by the defense team and outside experts chosen by counsel, who must be paid (i) for states using the statutory procedure in (1)(C), according to that procedure's own requirements, and (ii) for everyone else — (I) public defender attorneys get a salary comparable to the local prosecutor's office; (II) appointed attorneys get paid hourly, at a reasonable rate reflecting their qualifications, experience, and the local market for capital-case work; (III) non-attorney team members (investigators, mitigation specialists, experts) get paid based on their specialized skills; and (IV) both attorney and non-attorney team members get reimbursed for reasonable incidental expenses.