Florida taxpayers will be footing the legal bills for Michael Hernandez, the former middle school teenager charged with murdering his former classmate, Jaime Gough, at school last year.

Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Henry Leyte-Vidal recently declared Hernandez indigent after the teen's attorneys argued through motions and letters that his parents are broke.

Attorneys for the accused teenage killer also are seeking Gough's personal computer, thinking it might contain evidence that could help Hernandez's case, court documents filed last week show.

Hernandez, who turned 15 in February, is being tried as an adult on a charge of first-degree murder. He has confessed to stabbing Gough more than 40 times last year in a bathroom stall of Miami-Dade's Southwood Middle School, authorities said.

If convicted, Hernandez could receive life in prison. His attorneys plan an insanity defense on the grounds that Hernandez is schizophrenic.

Leyte-Vidal had repeatedly declined to provide state funds for Hernandez, pointing to a defense fund the parents established that at one point contained more than $54,000.

However, the judge has told attorneys they could ask for the state's help once those funds are depleted.

In a motion filed in March, defense attorney Richard Rosenbaum told the judge that Hernandez's parents had spent more than $115,000 in attorney fees and costs. He said prosecutors have listed about 200 witnesses in the case, and attorneys will have to depose most of them.

"It's a very expensive case, a full-fledge insanity defense case with more than 200 witnesses including doctors who get paid for by the hour," Rosenbaum said Monday.

Hernandez's guardian ad litem, Brian Tannebaum, also lobbied the judge for public funding.

"I have visited the Hernandez family in their home and understand that they have mortgaged it [their house] to pay the legal fees for their juvenile son," wrote Tannebaum in his letter to the judge. "These are not people of means. Their combined income is meager and inadequate to fund a proper defense for a first-degree murder case," wrote Tannebaum in his letter to the judge.

The parents, who declined to comment on Monday, said during a hearing last August that they have taken out a second mortgage worth $90,000 to pay the legal bills. The couple had by then spent $65,000 on legal fees and $17,000 to pay off their first mortgage.

Leyte-Vidal did not explain his decision in his April 25 order declaring Hernandez indigent. Prosecutors did not object to the request, said Miami-Dade State Attorney's spokesman Ed Griffith.

Rosenbaum, however, said he's growing impatient with prosecutors on a different matter: his request since March of last year to examine Gough's computer.

In a tersely written motion filed last week, Rosenbaum said he's waited patiently for more than a year. Rosenbaum did not elaborate on what he thinks will be found in the computer's hard drive.

Lead prosecutor Carin Kahgan is on vacation, and could not be reached for comment. However, in a memo she sent to Rosenbaum in late March, Kahgan declined to hand over the computer until the attorney specified exactly what he is looking for.

Rosenbaum has asked Leyte-Vidal to settle the dispute over the computer.

Ihosvani Rodriguez can be reached at ijrodriguez@sun-sentinel.com or 305-810-5005.