At this moment, there are about 2,200 capital defendants on the various "death rows" in state prisons.

Congress has been working on new national standards governing legal representation for capital defendants.

They say lower fees might prevent the best lawyers from representing capital defendants.

He also said that, in North Carolina, a capital defendant was sentenced at the end of a trial.

The bill sets minimum standards of experience and resources for lawyers who represent capital defendants.

"If you gave a capital defendant a representative jury, you couldn't produce a death penalty."

In that case, prosecutors argued, the capital defendant would only face the possibility of life in prison.

The way Texas provides lawyers for capital defendants is notoriously unfair.

Its defeat means that capital defendants have no available mechanism to challenge racism in sentencing.

Now, each capital defendant gets two attorneys, each paid $70 an hour, and money for reasonable experts.