After spend­ing near­ly $700,000 on the con­struc­tion of a new death cham­ber at San Quentin prison, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has halt­ed the project due to con­cerns raised by leg­is­la­tors that they were not con­sult­ed about the plan. It was recent­ly revealed that state offi­cials had secret­ly begun build­ing the new death cham­ber and that cor­rec­tions offi­cials claimed they did not have to con­sult the leg­is­la­ture because the cost of the project would be $399,000, below the $400,000 thresh­old that requires leg­isla­tive approval. James Tilton (pic­tured), sec­re­tary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, acknowl­edged that the project had already cost $700,000. State Senator Gloria Romera has sched­uled a hear­ing to inves­ti­gate alle­ga­tions that the admin­is­tra­tion was engaged in an end-run around the Legislature.

Last December, a fed­er­al judge in San Jose ruled that California’s appli­ca­tion of its lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dures vio­lates the con­sti­tu­tion­al ban against cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. At that time, Schwarzenegger said the state would fix the prob­lems, and state offi­cials lat­er said that they would have a new exe­cu­tion plan in place by May 15. Tilton said that offi­cials were attempt­ing to get the new death cham­ber fin­ished by May 15, but that the project could not be com­plet­ed by then. Despite doc­u­ments regard­ing the project sent on March 7 to the California Department of Finance and oth­er doc­u­ments signed by state cor­rec­tions offi­cials and dat­ed January 23, Tilton said that he had not been aware that the con­struc­tion project had com­menced until this month. He said that at least one offi­cial in the Corrections Department would be dis­ci­plined in the mat­ter.
(Los Angeles Times, April 20, 2007). See Costs and Lethal Injection.

Citation Guide