California Announces Pilot Program to Move Some Death-Row Prisoners Out of San Quentin

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has announced plans to allow some of the state’s death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers to move from San Quentin’s death row to oth­er state pris­ons that offer work and oth­er reha­bil­i­ta­tive pro­grams. In what has been billed a ​“pilot pro­gram,” the eli­gi­ble pris­on­ers will be able to trans­fer to one of eight less cost­ly high-secu­ri­ty pris­ons that pro­vide reha­bil­i­ta­tive ser­vices. The death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers who are trans­ferred would be required to work, with 70% of their wages going to pay resti­tu­tion to vic­tims’ families.

The changes, which are part of the state’s imple­men­ta­tion of Proposition 66, a 2016 bal­lot mea­sure that pur­port­ed to save the state mon­ey by speed­ing up exe­cu­tions, was met with mixed respons­es from death-penal­ty pro­po­nents. Former San Bernardino District Attorney Mike Ramos, who chaired the com­mit­tee to pass Proposition 66 but was defeat­ed for re-elec­tion two years lat­er, blast­ed the plan as ​“a slap to the face” of vic­tims’ fam­i­lies. However, Kent Scheidegger, legal direc­tor of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation and one of the authors of Proposition 66, down­played those objec­tions, say­ing the pro­gram ​“is most­ly imple­ment­ing the ini­tia­tive the people approved.”

The pilot pro­gram also applies to the 22 death-sen­tenced women in the state, who are housed at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla. For secu­ri­ty rea­sons, the women will remain at the Chowchilla facil­i­ty, but will be able to trans­fer off the women’s death row and par­tic­i­pate in reha­bil­i­ta­tion and work programs.

Dana Simas, CDCR Press Secretary, said pris­on­ers will be thor­ough­ly eval­u­at­ed and screened before they are allowed to trans­fer. ​“A des­ig­nat­ed clas­si­fi­ca­tion com­mit­tee will review the vol­un­teer inmates’ case fac­tors to deter­mine their secu­ri­ty, med­ical, psy­chi­atric and pro­gram needs and con­se­quent­ly, their appro­pri­ate hous­ing,” he said. Over the two years of the pilot pro­gram, prison admin­is­tra­tors and researchers plan to track par­tic­i­pants’ jobs, behav­ior, and safety records. 

“One of the argu­ments made against the death penal­ty was it cost too much to house them at San Quentin, which is an antique facil­i­ty,” Scheidegger wrote in a blog post, Leaving San Quentin. ​“Our response was, well, they don’t need to be housed there.” Scheidegger said the Proposition 66 man­date to move pris­on­ers out of San Quentin ​“was more to defuse one of the con­trary argu­ments.” He also not­ed that the pro­vi­sion ​“mere­ly restored pri­or law” that had allowed CDCR to house death-row pris­on­ers at oth­er facil­i­ties. An analy­sis by the leg­isla­tive ana­lyst found that trans­fer­ring pris­on­ers could reduce costs because secu­ri­ty require­ments at San Quentin are high­er than at other prisons.

Ramos com­plained that he didn’t ​“know of one fam­i­ly that’s going to want one cent from some­one who took their loved ones.” But Scheidegger told the Associated Press that the work require­ment was part of the vot­er ini­tia­tive. ​“One of the thoughts behind Prop 66, there’s no rea­son death row inmates can’t work and earn some small income, and that small income can go to the victim’s fam­i­ly,” Scheidegger said. ​“It’s not going to be much but at least it can be symbolic.”

California cur­rent­ly has a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions, imposed by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2019, and has dis­man­tled its exe­cu­tion cham­ber. The state imposed a record low three death sen­tences in 2019. ​“Our death penal­ty sys­tem has been, by all mea­sures, a fail­ure,” Newsom said in a state­ment accom­pa­ny­ing his mora­to­ri­um dec­la­ra­tion. ​“It has dis­crim­i­nat­ed against defen­dants who are men­tal­ly ill, black and brown, or can’t afford expen­sive legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion. It has pro­vid­ed no pub­lic safe­ty ben­e­fit or val­ue as a deter­rent. It has wast­ed bil­lions of tax­pay­er dol­lars. But most of all, the death penal­ty is absolute. It’s irre­versible and irrepara­ble in the event of human error.”