County reimbursed for trial costs

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December 14, 2009

By Jay Ermis The Huntsville Item Tue Dec 15, 2009, 12:00 AM CST

HUNTSVILLE — The State of Texas has reimbursed Walker County 100 percent of legal costs the county has paid so far to cover the cost of the capital murder trial of Texas Department of Criminal Justice inmate Jerry Duane Martin.

The trial in Centerville in Leon County began on Nov. 12 and a seven-woman, five-man jury gave Martin the death penalty in the death of TDCJ officer Susan Canfield on Dec. 8.

The judgment hearing in Martin’s case is set for 9 a.m. Thursday at the Walker County Courthouse.

County auditor Patricia Allen told the Commissioner’s Court during its Monday morning meeting that “the county submitted bills to the state comptroller’s office through Sept. 30 and the state has reimbursed us 100 percent of the legal costs to date.”

Allen said the county has received $200,758 from the state in reimbursement costs.

“Right now we have another $200,000 or so in invoices,” she said. “We have submitted the bills to the state and hopefully we will see the reimbursement in the next 30 days or so.”

The county allocated $462,000 to cover the cost of the trial and “the hope was that they would reimburse the county 100 percent and they have,” Allen said. “It’s certainly a good thing for the fund balance.”

Allen said the state will only reimburse legal costs.

“They will not reimburse us for travel-related costs,” she said. “The county will most likely be out only the district clerk’s travel, court reporters and prosecutors’ costs to travel.

“The $462,000 was allocated with the hope that the majority of that would be reimbursed by the state and it looks like it is going to occur.”

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County reimbursed for trial costs

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