Governor Jerry Brown has pulled the plug on plans to build a new death row at San Quentin State Prison. The Governor says it would be “unconscionable” to earmark $356 million for the project given the budget problems facing the state.
“At a time when we’re cutting schools and making a lot of other tough cuts, it just became clear that making this tremendous amount of investment in debt to build a new death row was not a wise move for the state at this time,” said Gil Duran, Brown’s Press Secretary.
Duran says there may be better ways to use the current space at San Quentin to house inmates.
He says there are fewer than 700 inmates on death row currently; that’s not as many as expected. The proposed facility was designed to house more than 1,100.
