Death Row Welcomes Media for Sales Pitch

Pressing their case for a new death row, officials at San Quentin State Prison on Tuesday gave reporters their first peek in 30 years inside the crowded and deteriorating home of California’s condemned.

Housing 614 men and expanding by about 30 inmates each year, death row is scattered among three buildings, a patchwork design that creates danger for guards and is vulnerable to escape, officials told journalists invited on the four-hour tour.

Unlike modern prisons with remote-control doors and other high-security features, San Quentin’s antiquated design requires guards to have frequent contact with the state’s most dangerous inmates -- escorting them to showers and exercise yards, delivering meals and collecting dirty laundry.

Although the cells have metal screens across the doors, some convicts still manage to hurl urine, feces and makeshift darts at passing guards, officials said.

Moreover, San Quentin -- the state’s oldest prison -- lacks the electrified perimeter fence common at other lockups with maximum-security inmates. From the outer wall of the main exercise area it is less than 50 yards to the shore of San Francisco Bay.

“This facility simply does not provide the high security we need for a death row population,” San Quentin Warden Jeanne Woodford said.

Reporters have been barred from visiting death row since the early 1970s, a policy adopted, corrections officials said, after media exposure turned some condemned prisoners into celebrities.

Davis’ Proposal

In allowing the rare visit Tuesday, officials hoped to stir support for Gov. Gray Davis’ proposal to spend $220 million on a new 1,000-cell death row just west of the old one. The project would be funded with revenue bonds that would not come due until 2007, but critics said even that sort of financing is questionable given the state’s budget crisis.

“In my district, I’m facing the closure of clinics, trauma centers shutting down, overcrowded classrooms and lots of other pain because of this crisis,” said state Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles), who heads an oversight committee on prisons and toured San Quentin last week. “So I don’t see this as a time when it makes sense to build a new and improved death row.”

Built in 1852, San Quentin sits on a scenic point about 20 miles north of San Francisco. From a distance, the prison’s cream-colored walls, red roofs and tree-dotted grounds have a Mediterranean look. But inside death row, the lockup’s age and mission become clear.

The original unit for the condemned was built in 1934 and designed for 68 inmates. Known as North Segregation and entered through a turreted foyer and a thick door with a peephole, it is now the VIP wing of death row -- the place where the best behaved of the condemned live.

It is clean, relatively quiet and was designed with the condemned in mind, meaning that guards can perform most of their functions without mixing with inmates. A sign on the wall declares it a “no stress zone.”

But North Segregation can house only a small slice of the condemned population. The other 520 convicts awaiting execution live in East Block, a damp, musty five-tier unit built in 1927.

Enclosed by double black steel doors, East Block is run by Lt. Don Graham, a 27-year veteran at San Quentin who said the building must constantly be remodeled to meet the needs of the condemned.

Mold and Mildew

Inmates take showers, for example, in two converted cells that appear to lack proper drainage. As reporters filed past, a steady dripping from above flooded the floors, leaving a trail of mold and mildew on the rusty rails of the cellblocks.

Outside, inmates segregated according to race, gang affiliations and other alliances milled about on crowded exercise yards. Some shot baskets, others did push-ups. Others leaned against the chain link, smoking and staring straight ahead.

As Graham described the inmates’ feeding schedule -- two hot meals and a sack lunch in their cells -- as well as visiting privileges, religious opportunities and other daily routines-- a convict yelled from across the yard:

“It’s all a bunch of lies -- don’t believe it!”

Graham grinned and noted that inmates are full of opinions. On Tuesday’s tour, however, reporters were not permitted to collect any.

Though East Block presents problems, the most serious security concerns, officials said, are found in the Adjustment Center, the aptly named unit where the most violent inmates -- including the “Night Stalker,” Richard Ramirez -- wind up. Here, guards carry pepper spray and wear full riot gear -- helmets with shields and bulletproof vests -- as they manage 93 men waiting to die.

On one side of the building, the cells have solid doors, a recent improvement that reduced the inmate “gassings” -- in which inmates throw feces and other bodily fluids at guards. On the other, officers moving down the cellblock do so behind a floor-to-ceiling plexiglass shield that protects them from flying objects.

“It works pretty well, but at some point you’ve got to reach around it” to open a door or deliver a meal, said Lt. Art Munoz, manager of operations in the Adjustment Center. Getting gassed, he said, “is no fun. A lot of these guys have HIV or hepatitis C, so you always worry about that.”

Outside, 34 cages known as “walk-alone yards” -- enclosed by chain-link fencing and containing a toilet and sink -- serve as exercise space for the unit’s condemned men. In this unit, most inmates exercise solo. As reporters watched, a shirtless convict with a shaved head and tattoos on his arms and back paced methodically, tossing a blue ball in the air.

Although the riot gear, gun tower and other security features make the facility appear secure, Munoz said two close calls in recent years have added motivation to rebuild death row.

Close Call

In the worst episode, four Adjustment Center inmates managed to loosen a rusty link of chain fence and burst through, nearly assaulting staff members before a shot was fired, striking one.

“We got lucky,” Munoz said. “That could have been very bad.”

The new death row would sit on 20 acres on the southwestern corner of the prison grounds.

Cells in the two-story housing units would have solid doors and be about twice the 40-square-foot size they are now. The facility would include areas for visiting, medical, dental and mental health services.

If approved by the Legislature, construction would begin in 2005.