From NACDL's Champion, September/October, 1999,
23 Champion 13 (available on Lexis.com):

In October 1998, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals imposed a fine of $ 12,600 upon Richard H. Burr and Robert Nigh, court-appointed counsel for Timothy McVeigh as a sanction for filing an overly long brief in the appeal of McVeigh's conviction for the Oklahoma City Bombing and the resulting sentence of death imposed upon him.

NACDL members Burr and Nigh had requested permission from the court to file a brief in excess of the maximum allowed 100 pages. Their request was denied. Nonetheless, the lawyers filed a 226-page brief, advising the court that they did not intentionally mean to disregard the order, but had failed in their good-faith efforts to shorten the brief. The Tenth Circuit responded by individually fining the lawyers $ 12,600, representing $ 100 a page for each of the excess 126 pages.....[the money was] withheld from their final pay-checks under the Criminal Justice Act.

Through the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, I started a collection fund for them, offering one of the excess pages of the brief personally signed by Burr and Nigh to any lawyer who donated $100.

The Oklahoma City Bombing involved the largest federal criminal investigation in American history. The litigation that ensued over the next two years was simply enormous. Merritt also believed that the court's insistence upon adherence to rigid and potentially arbitrary page limitations, particularly in a death penalty case, threatens the defense lawyer's constitutional duty to render effective assistance of counsel, and the ethical duty to represent the clients diligently to the best of one's ability.

We collected $6250.00.

Burr and Nigh had decided to donate all contributions received to NACDL, with a request that the funds be used to aid in the fight against the death penalty.

The money was donated to NACDL's death penalty committee to be used for public defenders and others to attend death penalty training seminars.

Jeff Skilling is serving 24 years in prison. The trial lasted several months. If his lawyers say they need 237 pages to present his arguments, I say let them.

Update: I just finished reading Skilling's 14 page motion (pdf) justifying the 60,000 word brief. It argues the Government filed a 70,000 word brief in an Enron-related appeal, U.S. v. Brown, and a 56,000 word brief in the Martha Stewart appeal.