State building new death chamber / Lawmakers accuse governor of hiding San Quentin project

2007-04-13 15:38:00 PDT Sacramento -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration has quietly begun building a new execution chamber at San Quentin State Prison, prompting angry lawmakers who just learned about the construction this week to accuse the governor of hiding the project from the Legislature and the public.

Prison officials began construction in January after concluding it would cost $399,000 -- just under the $400,000 price tag that would have required legislative approval, according to an administration document obtained Friday by the Chronicle. The new death chamber is being built as the state's use of capital punishment is under review by a federal court and lawmakers have yet to authorize a larger construction project to revamp the prison's entire Death Row.

"To sneak a project like this through is just outrageous," said Assemblyman Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, whose Marin County district includes San Quentin. "We will find out what kind of creative accounting they've done."

A spokesman for the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said the new execution chamber, being built near the site of the current chamber at San Quentin, was part of Schwarzenegger's response to a federal judge's ruling in December that the state's haphazard method of lethal injection could be unconstitutional.

"This is part of the attempt to bring the lethal injection process up to the level the judge has requested," said Seth Unger, press secretary for the department.

U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel ordered Schwarzenegger in December to come up with changes. Among the concerns that Fogel cited, which included the administration of the drugs used for executions, was the dimly lit and cramped space the state used as its execution chamber for lethal injections.

Schwarzenegger filed a response to Fogel's ruling in January that said he would enact changes by mid May, although he did not say he would build a new death chamber.

A Jan. 23 memo from corrections officials to the Department of Finance described the new construction project, saying the state had been directed by the judge to create a new chamber -- an assertion that appears to be untrue. The memo also notes the project's price tag would be $399,000 and therefore would not require legislative approval.

No one outside the administration knew about the construction until this week, when staffers with the Legislative Analyst's Office were on a routine tour of the prison and were shown the project, which is expected to be finished by early May. Construction workers are renovating an exisiting structure at the prison to use as the new execution chamber, will include separate rooms for the condemned inmate, the media and other visitors.

The Legislative Analyst's Office -- a nonpartisan agency that provides financial advice to the Legislature -- is seeking information from the administration about the project, including how it arrived at the price tag. State law allows departments to make minor capitol improvements such as repairs without notifying the Legislature as long as the cost is less than $400,000, according to Brian Brown, who works on corrections issues for the analyst's office. Any project that costs more than $400,00 requires legislative approval.

Lawmakers questioned the price of the project.

Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, calling the secrecy of a project involving such a high-profile issue "insulting."

"Why not $399,999.99?" Leno asked facetiously. "The question is, was this price tag a coincidence?"

Unger said the department was under a tight timeline to make changes that didn't "allow the normal budget process."

"Our facilities managers were able to construct it for that amount of money and so we chose to go with that process," Unger said. He noted the department intended to inform the Legislature of the project in an upcoming quarterly report that lists all minor construction projects that cost less than $400,000.

Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, said the cost was "suspicious," and said he would demand that corrections officials explain the project at a public hearing.

Perata noted that two of his aides were at San Quentin earlier this month and were not shown the new building. He said the revelation about a new death chamber could slow negotiations between the governor and lawmakers on other prison issues.

"He is asking us for the authority to build $10 billion in new prison beds," Perata said about the governor's proposal to address prison overcrowding. "But if we can't trust them on something like this, why should we trust them at all?"

Huffman said he was particularly angry because he recently held a meeting with Schwarzenegger's top corrections secretary, Jim Tilton, about a proposal to rebuild the entire Death Row at San Quentin and Tilton did not mention the new execution chamber.

The Schwarzenegger administration has proposed a $337 million project that would build new cells for Death Row inmates, who are currently living in old, cramped quarters.

The project has been proposed for years and met with opposition in Marin County, where some local officials have called for closing the 155-year-old prison. The new Death Row proposal is 53 percent more expensive than one proposed in 2003, and a recent report by the Legislative Analyst's Office recommended that lawmakers deny the project.

"Why on earth would you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on something when the whole Death Row project is in question and we're not sure our form of capital punishment will meet constitutional muster?" Huffman said.

While administration officials said in the memo initiating the project that they had been directed by the court to create a new execution chamber, there is no court order suggesting they do so. Fogel asked the administration to come up with proposed fixes, which he plans to review after they are submitted in May.

An attorney for Michael Morales, the Death Row inmate who sued the state over its use of lethal injection, said he was not aware of the administration's project and did not believe the governor had notified the court that it was building a new chamber.

The attorney, David Senior, noted that Schwarzenegger had requested an unusual court order that would have allowed the administration to keep its deliberations about revamping death penalty procedures under seal, which would have made it far more difficult for defense lawyers or the media to obtain any documents related to the issue. The Chronicle and other news organizations argued against the court order, and Fogel agreed with the media in a February ruling.

"The failure to disclose what they're doing and how they're doing it (at San Quentin) meets squarely with their refusal to provide transparency throughout this process," Senior said.