California already has the largest death row in the coun­try and is now plan­ning to build a new $220 mil­lion facil­i­ty designed to house more than 1,400 death row inmates. State Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald M. George said that the large death row reflects the con­se­quences of a care­ful appeals process that is designed to ensure due process for those fac­ing exe­cu­tion. ​“The virtues of the sys­tem also rep­re­sent its vices because it does end up caus­ing a lot of delay,” stat­ed the Chief Justice, a for­mer pros­e­cu­tor who notes that the lead­ing cause of death on California’s death row is old age. Currently, there is a four-year wait for inmates to be assigned a lawyer to begin their first appeal and 118 peo­ple on death row have not yet been assigned a lawyer. ​“We take great care to try and appoint com­pe­tent counsel.…I could take care of that back­log in two days if I were not fol­low­ing the very rig­or­ous stan­dards that California has estab­lished.”

Since the state rein­stat­ed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in 1977, it has car­ried out 10 exe­cu­tions. There are 641 peo­ple cur­rent­ly on the state’s death row. (New York Times, December 18, 2004). See Representation and Costs.

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