If the case can be resolved short of going to trial, the $75,000 may be enough, possibly even more than enough, said Tom Means, head of the Utah County Public Defenders Association.

Two recent capital cases — Jaime Velasco and Keith Lamont Morton — were each settled relatively quickly with guilty pleas, costing $67,524 and $34,807, respectively.

Negotiating murder

"We have a disproportionate amount of capital cases for our community," Jarvis said. "It seems like every murder we have is capital."

With an expanded aggravated murder code, adopted by the Utah Legislature in 2007 with HB228, prosecutors can now charge the death of a child as an aggravated murder — the charge Putnam faced and what Gardea now faces.

It's unlikely their cases would have been capital under the old statute, but they "fit very cleanly into the new language," Utah County Attorney Jeff Buhman said.

"I, personally, support the death penalty," Utah County Attorney Jeff Buhman said. "I think there are cases where the conduct of the defendant merits the death penalty, it's as simple as that. The fact that this is the highest a law allows is a significant stick, but that's because the crime is significant."

And with significant crimes, there comes a greater motivation to negotiate, Buhman said. No one wants the heavy punishment of death over their head.

"In my opinion, prosecutors in Utah have been very reasonable in their pursuit of the death penalty," said Kent Hart, assistant federal defender with the Capital Habeas Unit of the Utah Federal Defender Office — essentially a public defender for death-row inmates. "They've been restrained. But they keep the death penalty because they use it as a bargaining chip."

Buhman refuted the bargaining chip claim.

"It is a big stick, but we do not use it as a threat," Buhman said.

Deputy county attorney Tim Taylor said attorneys only file a capital case when they feel like they can prove all the elements of the crime.

"(Does) it ultimately end up being used as a bargaining tool? Absolutely, it just is," Taylor said. "But I don't think that's necessarily the reason that we do that. We have to feel like we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt the aggravating factors."

Yet, some defense attorneys question why the county doesn't file a charge of murder rather than aggravated murder, because a conviction nets almost the same consequences but saves the county tens of thousands of dollars in defense work.