Governor Blasted for Expensive San Quentin Expansion Project

In fact, it is worse, as the Sacramento Bee reported yesterday. The $64.7 million is merely a down payment.  “Construction would cost about $360 million. Interest payments on 20-year bonds the state ordinarily would sell to finance the construction could add another $150 million or more to the final price tag.”

The idea should have been shot down by the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) back in 2008.  At that time, the LAO recommended against such additional funding “unless the department can resolve questions about inmate population restrictions at the prison and the tripling of housing unit construction costs for the project.”

“The department’s estimated costs for the project have escalated dramatically over time, even as the scope of the project has been reduced from an original plan for 1,408 beds to the present plan for 1,152 beds for condemned inmates,” the LAO reported.

“Last year, during the course of our review of the 2007–08 budget proposal to complete the construction of the new Death Row, questions arose as to the appropriateness of the condemned housing project in light of constraints imposed on the overall San Quentin inmate population,” the report read. 

“The issue of a population cap at San Quentin has important ramifications for the state’s overcrowded state prison system. If the additional capacity added through the CIC project is added to the existing cells at San Quentin, including those now housing Death Row inmates, it is possible that San Quentin someday might not be able to use its full bed capacity and the state would thus have to let hundreds of beds at the prison remain empty to comply with an agreed–upon population limit,” the report continued.  “It would not make sense, in our view, to invest such a large sum of state funds for new prison capacity only to have to let hundreds of other prison beds sit idle someday. On the other hand, if the actual capacity of the prison with the added CIC beds is below the agreed upon population cap, this should no longer be a concern.”

Both Senator Mark Leno and Assemblymember Jared Huffman have been strong opponents of this plan for some time.

Senator Leno pointed out that the construction costs are actually the tip of the iceberg and the bigger problem is the ongoing operating costs.

”While California is in the midst of a dire financial crisis, the Schwarzenegger Administration is pushing forward with the expansion of San Quentin’s death row, without first exploring any alternatives,” the Senator said.  “I continue to oppose this deeply-flawed project.”

“The proposed construction and operating costs will exceed $1.6 billion over the next 11 years, and despite the cost and increased capacity, the new inmate complex would run out of space by 2014,” said Senator Leno.

“The governor’s proposal to use General Fund dollars for this ill-conceived project at a time when he is decimating support for our children’s education and the sustenance of services for seniors and children makes no sense at all. The Schwarzenegger Administration should take the necessary steps to explore alternatives to the expansion of San Quentin before acting recklessly with taxpayer dollars and one of the California coast’s most beautiful and precious stretches of land,” the Senator concluded.

“At a time when the state may be two weeks away from sending IOU’s and when the Governor is attempting to furlough 156,000 state workers, citing our impending cash crisis, it is stunningly hypocritical that he is surreptitiously – and quite possibly illegally – borrowing $64 million from the state’s deteriorating General Fund in order to advance his favorite pet prison project:  the $400 million “Cadillac Death Row” at San Quentin,” Assemblymember Jared Huffman said last week.

“It’s a project that has been stalled by the budget crisis, by the courts, and by the inability to sell bonds due to pending litigation and the uncertain legality of proceeding with construction,” he continued.  “It’s also a project that the Legislative Analyst found to be so wildly expensive that they recommended scrapping it, and the State Auditor concluded that it would likely provide a very short-term solution for housing condemned inmates since the condemned inmate population would exceed its undersized capacity within three years of completion.  If built, this would be the most expensive inmate housing ever built, at a cost of more than $500,000 per cell.” 

According to the Assemblymember the problem is one of misplaced priorities.  “The Governor’s shockingly-misplaced priorities would move California’s general fund $64 million closer to insolvency.  At a time when the general fund crisis is already deferring payments to local governments and schools, and our dwindling cash reserves portend IOU’s for everyone who does business with the state and imminent shortages for our education system, our healthcare safety net, and front-line public safety needs, it is simply unconscionable for the Governor to prioritize this $400 million boondoggle”

“The Governor should take care of our highest priorities with the limited cash we have in the general fund, and work to resolve the legal questions that have impeded the sale of bonds for his Cadillac Death Row instead of raiding the general fund for this controversial project,” the Assemblymember concluded.

To get a sense for how deep the Governor’s problem goes, newspapers such as the Stockton Record came out yesterday against the proposal.  Not only did they call the expenditure, “ludicrous” and argue, “When we’re firing teachers, police and firefighters and our streets are going without repair, the idea of building a bigger death row is loony.” 

But they called the death penalty and capital punishment system “utterly broken” arguing “It costs millions and takes years for a capital sentence to be carried out.”

Moreover they come out against the death penalty itself, not based on moral problems of the death penalty, but rather based on the extremely wasteful and inefficient system we have in place. 

“We don’t have a particular moral problem with the death penalty. We do have a problem with the insanity of continuing to waste money on a system that is broken beyond repair,” said the Record.

End the death penalty and the millions we waste not carrying it out. Give such criminals life without parole, put them away and never under any circumstances let them out. Problem solved; millions saved,” the Editorial concluded.

Likewise the Sacramento Bee blasted the Governor.  They write, “We cannot imagine the governor decided to press ahead with the construction, out of spite or because he is upset with Democratic legislators. That would be extremely petty. We prefer to think the administration is being driven by its vision of what is best for the state, although its priorities are seriously askew on this one. “

The problem, as they point out, is California does not use to the death penalty, but no one is willing to end it.  The Bee writes, “The plan to build a shiny new 541,000-square-foot death row within San Quentin’s boundaries underscores fundamental problems with capital punishment. So long as there is a death penalty, the state will need to house, clothe and feed the inmates at huge costs.”

“San Quentin sits on prime bayfront property in Marin County. It could be sold for a fortune and turned into housing, a transit hub, a ferry port and much more,” the editorial continues.  “However, lawmakers cannot agree to close San Quentin. Nor are they prepared to abolish capital punishment, given that Californians support it by a wide margin. The U.S. Supreme Court and California Supreme Court seem willing to permit the process to continue, knowing that it is more likely that someone will be struck by lightning than die by lethal injection or gas.”

The stats are staggering.  Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1978, 13 men have been put to death, while the Bee reports 73 others have died from other causes including suicide, drug overdose, and natural causes.  “There hasn’t been an execution since January 2006, and there’s no certainty there will be any executions any time soon,” they report, citing one inmate who will turn 100 this year and another who has been on death row since October 13, 1978 – that is 32 years.  How much money have we spent just to house him on death row?

The Bee concludes, “In California,  the death penalty is conceptual. There simply are too many smart attorneys who can mount too many arguments that will persuade too many judges to place executions on hold. So long as we retain this broken system, taxpayers will be condemned to pay the price – in this instance, about $500 million for a new death row.”

I am an opponent of the death penalty.  I oppose it first because I do not believe you can teach killing is wrong by having the state sanctioning killing.  But second, because I think it is discriminatory and flawed.

In other states, where they actually do execute people occasionally, there are severe flaws in the system.  There are numerous states dealing with suits that argue a disproportionate number of minorities end up on death row and executed while white convicted murders, often with similar offenses, end up with some form of life in prison.

Mostly, I just do not have faith in the system not to convict innocent people.  At least when we are not killing people we have some recourse, albeit empty and destructive.  We hear about people released from prison after 20 years, but what we do not hear is that they often live ruined lives.

However, when we execute them it becomes a bit irrevocable.  Here is a recent case I have been following.  Cameron Todd Willingham was executed for the arson murders of his children despite evidence that there was no arson and thus no crime.  Governor Perry of Texas actually had the evidence before him that Mr. Willingham may have been innocent, but allowed him to be put to death anyway.

The Houston Chronicle in July published an article reporting on the Texas Forensic Science Commission’s report.  “In a report prepared last year for the commission, fire expert Craig Beyler said the original investigation was so seriously flawed that the finding of arson can’t be supported. He said the investigation didn’t adhere to the fire investigation standards in place at the time, or to current standards.”

The article continues, “The commission then appointed a four-person panel to review Willingham’s case. John Bradley, who is chairman of both the panel and the commission, said the panel’s review concluded arson experts in the case did not commit misconduct or negligence.”

Furthermore, “Bradley and panel member Sarah Kerrigan, a forensic toxicologist and director of a crime lab at Sam Houston State University, acknowledged the science the fire investigators used in the Willingham case was flawed. But they said that didn’t translate into professional negligence, because investigators were relying on the techniques and information available at the time.”

Finally, “New fire investigation standards were not adopted until 1992, the same year Willingham was convicted, but it was several years after that before they were adopted nationally, said Bradley, who is also the Williamson County district attorney.”

Bottom line folks, the Governor knew of these problems but allowed the man to be executed anyway.  Meanwhile there is a lot of rear-covering in this report as they argued that this did not “translate into professional negligence.”

So it appears that an innocent man was killed in Texas and no one bothered to stop it.  Meanwhile in California, we are building additional storage capacity for people that will likely die long before they are executed.  How much money are we wasting on things like this?

—David M. Greenwald reporting