In 1995 Congress cut off funding for the Nation's 20 death penalty resource centers, and Federal funding expired on March 31, 1996. The first eight centers were opened in 1988 to implement a law mandating representation in the Federal appeals process for indigent capital offenders. Closing the centers was supposed to accelerate the appeals and reduce the cost, though it may accomplish just the opposite and may increase the likelihood of executing the innocent. Supporters of the centers claim that, while they did not provide a solution to the larger problem of quality of counsel at the trial level, they at least offered a relatively inexpensive means of providing inmates with qualified and experienced lawyers in their post-conviction appeals. Opponents say the centers were a major reason why the appeals process drags on about questions farther and farther removed from the issue of guilt or innocence. Some resource centers that receive State funds will continue to do much of the same work they always have and some organizations and individuals are attempting to continue representing death row inmates by relying on private funding.