A peek at San Quentin death row
Second tour in 36 years seeks public support
SAN QUENTIN, California (Reuters) -- Shortly after the gate slammed shut leading to aging San Quentin prison's cells housing the most dangerous murderers already condemned to die, the warden issued a stark warning.
"People have been killed standing where we are standing," said Jill Brown, whose prison holds 613 men sentenced to execution but awaiting court appeals. It is the largest death row in the nation.
Brown allowed a small group of journalists to visit death row at San Quentin Monday for only the second time in the past 36 years. The state's Department of Corrections is hoping to build public support for a new $220 million death row at the prison to house the swelling ranks of condemned inmates.
Inside the "Adjustment Center" -- a facility for the most violent inmates -- Lt. Michael Barker went through a roster of some of the infamous inmates of this prison on a scenic spit of land overlooking the bay north of San Francisco.
He showed a photo of Richard Allen Davis, who kidnapped and murdered 12-year-old Polly Klaas in a crime that helped prompt California to stiffen sentences for multiple offenders.
"Any inmate that gets a chance will try to kill him. A lot of people blame him for the three-strikes law," said Davis, referring to a California law that mandates a sentence of life in prison for three or more felony convictions.
Some of the toughest death row inmates have special designations, such as "spit hood," which means the prisoner can only be moved with his mouth fully covered to protect the guards. Even prisoners' combs, numbered and separated, are kept outside the cells in a special box for security reasons.
Roscoe Tuilaepa, on death row since 1986 can move around the prison only with handcuffs and leg irons. "The single most dangerous inmate to officers in this prison," said Barker, adding that Tuilaepa's attacks had caused four guards to retire early because of serious injuries.
Guards are authorized to respond quickly. "No warning shots fired in this unit," read the signs in death row.
Even when they are scheduled to die, condemned inmates are moved throughout the day to different areas for exercise, visitation, and other programs allowed under an agreement stemming from a 1979 lawsuit.
Those obligations to provide more than just a cell even for society's most heinous criminals have prompted corrections officials to seek the new, more secure death row facility.
'Grade A' killer
San Quentin was opened in 1852 and in recent years has taken in about 30 new death row inmates annually. Because of lengthy appeals, on average just one man a year is executed -- a far slower rate than in smaller states such as Texas.
"It's not unusual for a man to be here 20 years before an execution sentence is carried out," said Smith.
The new death row would house 1,408 death row inmates, large enough for the next 25 years, said John McNitt, site manager for the "condemned inmate complex." Construction could begin next year with the goal not to enhance their lives but to meet legal obligations regarding prisoners, officials said.
One of those waiting to die is mass murder Richard Wade Farley, 56, a computer programmer in Silicon Valley who shot dead seven people and wounded five others after he was fired for harassing a female co-worker.
On Monday, Farley was quietly playing chess in a barred area outside his cell. Although a number of other inmates expressed hopes they would one day win their freedom, Farley was under no such illusion.
"I don't think anybody will commute my sentence," he said in an interview through the bars.
Farley has spent 12 years in San Quentin playing chess, doing math and crossword puzzles. A new death row facility mattered little to him. "You're going to be in a four-and-a-half-by-ten cell no matter where you go," he said. "I don't know what the difference will be."
Farley is considered a "Grade A" prisoner, which means he is allowed slightly better conditions than the "Grade B" inmates considered a serious danger. Grade B prisoners are kept alone in small enclosed pens in a yard during exercise time, while Grade A prisoners are allowed out together in yards fenced with concertina wire.
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