Prosecuting a capital murder case is a drain on the resources of any county prosecutor's office, and can physically exhaust those responsible for working toward a guilty verdict.

But at an average cost of $50,000 per case, said state Rep.

Jaret Gibbons, D-10th, it can quickly deplete financial resources as well.Gibbons is seeking co-sponsors for a bill he is drafting that would create a grant program to reimburse fourth- through eighth-class counties in Pennsylvania for the cost of prosecuting a capital murder case."Larger counties have the financial resources to handle multiple capital murder cases in a fiscal year," Gibbons said. "But in smaller counties, a single death-penalty case is a serious financial burden that could exhaust the funding set aside for such cases and force a county to raise property taxes."He said the justice system must function without consideration of cost."These cases require that prosecutors leave no stone unturned,"he said. "It costs money to screen jurors, send evidence to be tested in laboratories, and bring in expert witnesses. And that's just the first time around. A lengthy appeals process or a possible retrial increases the costs exponentially."Gibbons said the legislation has not been finalized yet, but he envisions a program set up through the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency to award grants twice a year.The lawmaker said anyone who wants to send him comments on the bill can contact him through his Web site at www.pahouse.com/Gibbons.———U.S. Rep.

Jason Altmire, D-4th, last week voted for a bill he said would strengthen America's middle-class by providing workers a free choice to join together to bargain for better wages, benefits, and working conditions.The House of Representatives, in a 241 to 185 vote, approved the measure called the Employee Free Choice Act,A member of the House Education and Labor Committee, Altmire said the bill supports the right of workers to form a union.The legislation would protect employees seeking to unionize from discrimination, intimidation, and harassment from employers. Under this measure, employees will be able to form a union when a majority of workers signs authorization cards."Workers who belong to unions earn on average 30 percent more than non-union workers and are more likely to have better health care and pension benefits," Altmire said. "This bill will give workers a chance to make real choices for themselves about whether or not to form a union."In addition to allowing workers to form a union through majority sign-up, the measure would penalize employers that illegally fire or discriminate against workers for union activity.———U.S. Rep.

Phil English, R-3rd, said he wants to make the tax code simpler, fairer and more predictable for millions of American taxpayers.The ranking member of the House Ways and Means Select Revenue Measures Subcommittee, English recently introduced legislation to repeal the individual and corporate alternative minimum tax."The AMT is a Frankenstein's monster,"English said, "which over the years has affected more and more taxpayers by subjecting them to a parallel tax system that arbitrarily, and sometimes unpredictably, deprives them of tax preferences and incentives which they've planned for."The AMT has punished millions of middle class Americans each year with a tax intended for a handful of the highest level earners."The AMT imposes a separate and distinct tax calculation that has its own set of rates and rules for the measurement of income and determination of tax deductions. Originally created in 1969 to prevent corporations and wealthy individuals from avoiding taxation entirely, Congress created the AMT to its current form in 1986.Today, an individual or business potentially in the AMT must determine their tax liability under both the income tax and AMT systems, and are subject to the greater of the two.While the structural features of the regular income tax are indexed for inflation, the AMT is not. As a result, as incomes have risen more and more during the past 20 years taxpayers have fallen into the AMT.English, co-chairman of the Zero AMT Caucus, warned that if Congress does not act to address the individual AMT this year, more than 20 million taxpayers will be affected by it next year.