martin: you ve got all these agencies that you ve got to coordinate. you ve got all these victims that you ve got to care for. this was a monumental effort, and then you add to it that this is a capital murder case. the preparations are absolutely incredible. yochelson: he was initially represented by two appointed members of the l.a. county public defender s office. great attorneys. he had excellent representation. but for whatever reason, ramirez s family chose to fire the public defender s office and bring in a series of private counsel. first issue that came up was who was paying for this defense, because mounting a capital defense under any circumstances is tremendously expensive. hernandez: and then he got mr. gallegos for a couple of weeks. woman: my understanding, mr. ramirez that you would like to have mr. gallegos as your attorney. is that correct? yes. mr. gallegos apparently had offered him
richard ramirez. there were tremendous challenges putting the case together. you have all of these agencies coordinating. all of these the dems to care for. this is a monumental effort. it is also a capital murder case. he was initially represented by two appointed members of the public defenders office. great attorneys. for whatever reason, his family chose to fire the public defenders office and bring in a series of private counsel. the first issue was who was paying for the defense, mounting a capital offense defenses extremely expensive.
chris, honestly, no. and again, this is coming from someone who has prosecuted a case where we were seeking death for someone who murdered several family members. you don t realize the stark realities until you re actually picking a jury, and going through the process. but to pick a jury in a capital murder case, your vote may lead to someone being put to death by lethal injection, are you capable of doing that for the person sitting across the table from you. the people who answer yes shake you to your core, in terms of thinking through what you re doing, and the execution, alabama alone, july of 2022, they tried to put judge aims to death, it took three hours because they couldn t find his vein. at a certain point, these problems are so widespread, we have to stop and ask ourselves, what are we doing, especially when in instances like joe james family didn t want to see him put to death. alabama doesn t require a unanimous vote of a jury to send someone to death row, i think,