Contacted Thursday, Carpenter said he couldn’t provide an estimate of what the ATF likely spent on the case, including man hours and overhead. He declined further comment. An ATF representative couldn’t be reached.

The chief administrator

Happe said Thursday that Ali and Cleary’s funding estimate amounts to about half of the Public Defender Board’s annual $300,000 budget.

“The Board’s decision was based on the resources available, and is of course not at all related to your representation,” Happe writes in an e-mail to Ali dated the day after the funding request was declined. “Our annual budget for professional services is $300,000, which barely pays for necessary services in a typical year. At the halfway point in 2008, we’ve spent half of our budget. Spending $120,000 more on this individual case would make it impossible to provide competent services to the remaining hundreds of indigent defendants facing felony charges.”

Happe said the funds already spent on Delph’s defense accumulated over several years and were spread out over several budget cycles. The latest request came all at once, making it too much for this year’s budget to handle.

“Nobody budgets for expenditures of this level,” Happe said Sunday. “At the end of the day, there just weren’t enough coins in the purse.”

In the e-mail to Ali, Happe says it’s up to Judge Spencer to decide how to move forward: either paying the expenses from the Circuit Court’s budget, mandating the payment or appointing salaried county public defenders and “restricting funds for experts.”

Spencer decided to appoint new attorneys, naming public defenders John Reeder and Bob Cowles to the case on Thursday.

Cowles said Sunday he hadn’t yet reviewed the case, and doesn’t know what experts Delph has retained or prosecutors have consulted. He also wasn’t yet sure if the change in representation would cause Delph’s trial to be delayed yet again.

“I haven’t seen one thing in the file,” Cowles said. “I’ll be on the ground running this week.”

Ongoing case

The change in attorneys is the latest turn in the ongoing case.

Firefighters were called to the Delph family home at 1307 W. Second St. on May 17, 2004, and found the building engulfed in flames. Firefighters found Robynn Delph and Joshua unresponsive in Joshua’s bedroom. The two were taken outside the home, but attempts to revive them were unsuccessful. They were pronounced dead at the scene and it was later determined they died of smoke inhalation.

Investigators alleged Delph killed his wife and son by burning down the home to collect insurance. They also raised allegations that the couple was having marital difficulties. Prosecutors charged him with arson and murder the next month.

Delph was released from the Madison County Jail on his own recognizance in January 2006. Spencer ordered the charges against Delph dropped later that year, saying prosecutors took too long to bring him to trial. Prosecutors appealed the dismissal not long afterward.