Two California legislators from opposing political parties and with different points of view on the death penalty have proposed cutting funding for a new $395 million death row at San Quentin Prison. “The Death Row expansion is a bottomless money pit,” said Republican state Senator Jeff Denham. Democratic Assemblyman Jared Huffman added, “We should use this opportunity, with the state running out of cash, to step back and rethink this project.” Calling the renovation project, “Cadillac Death Row,” Huffman pointed to a state auditor’s report that found the cost of the project had already increased by $40 million over earlier estimates and the 20-year operating cost would be $1.2 billion. Huffman predicted that the new facility would run out of space by 2014, adding, “This project is hugely expensive and has a shelf life of three years.”
(B. Egelko, “2 lawmakers team up to oppose new Death Row,” San Francisco Gate, December 17, 2008.) See Costs. According to the recent California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice report, “The additional cost of confining an inmate to death row, as compared to the maximum security prisons where those sentenced to life without possibility of parole ordinarily serve their sentences, is $90,000 per year per inmate. With California’s current death row population of 670, that accounts for $63.3 million annually.”
