State ex rel. Foster v. Gainer

Harshbarger, Justice:

Hartzell Ray Foster petitions this Court for a writ of mandamus to compel the State Auditor to pay an advanced retainer of $1,000 to a ballistics expert whose presence is required at Foster’s murder trial. In April, 1980, we ruled that if an indigent defendant, by his counsel, follows the *89requisite procedure and shows good cause for expenditure of expert fees over the statutory maximum, due process requires that he be afforded “the ability to have relevant expert testimony to counter the state’s experts.” State ex rel. Foster v. Luff, 164 W.Va. 413, 264 S.E.2d 477, 480…