SAN QUENTIN, Calif. -- This quiet peninsula features the kind of perks that inhabitants of the space-starved Bay Area would kill for. To the south, waves lap gently against a pristine shore, and the Interstate 580 bridge vanishes in a soft white mist. To the north, rolling green hills hide the dense suburbia just beyond. And all of this just 30 minutes from downtown San Francisco.
Yet, if the next big development planned for this spot is completed as scheduled in a few years, only a very select few will be allowed to move in: the 622 men of California's death row.
San Quentin State Prison, California's oldest prison, occupies 432 acres of prime waterfront real estate, 30 minutes from downtown San Francisco. Some say the land could be better used for parkland, housing and as a transit hub.
(Amy Argetsinger -- The Washington Post)
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For 152 years, Point Quentin has been home to the state prison that shares its name -- a name that became legend through dozens of old gangster movies, a Johnny Cash album, and alumni that range from stagecoach robber Black Bart to mass murderer Charles Manson (transferred long ago to another facility).
San Quentin was California's first prison and remains one of the oldest still in operation in the United States. In addition to the condemned inmates, about 5,000 other prisoners live here at any one time.
But as corrections officials move forward with a plan to replace the antiquated and overcrowded death row complex, business leaders and politicians from the surrounding community are embarking on a last-ditch battle to stop it. They argue that such prime real estate in the heart of fashionable Marin County cries out for a number of better uses -- as parkland, a housing development, a transit hub -- which they fear would be deferred indefinitely if the prison expands now.
"Marin County is one of the most expensive places to live or build. Why renovate a tear-down property?" asked Edward Segal, executive vice president of the local Realtors association, which advocates moving death row to another part of the state. "It's the wrong thing to do, at the wrong place."
Corrections officials dismiss such arguments as elitist and shortsighted. They say cost and safety concerns weigh against moving or delaying the project, for which state lawmakers have already approved $220 million for construction to begin late next year.
But the opposition effort appeared to gain new life last month when San Quentin appeared on a state government list of potential "surplus" properties that California could consider selling to ease the burden of the state's fiscal crisis on taxpayers. More recently, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) has agreed to meet with the project's opponents to hear their case. Now, Segal and others say they could have "the best chance in decades" to close San Quentin for good.
Even without its enviable location, San Quentin's expansion plan was bound to spark a flashpoint, because of the political debate concerning its most notorious residents.
California now has the nation's largest death row population by far -- 644, including 15 women housed at a facility in Chowchilla -- and one of the fastest-growing. About 30 people are sentenced to death in the state every year. Yet, since reinstituting the death penalty in 1977 and resuming executions in 1992, California has executed only 10 people -- the last one in 2002, a man who had waited on death row for nearly 20 years.
The glacial pace of executions has infuriated many victims' relatives. And it is a large part of the reason behind the push for a new death row: The original condemned-inmates unit at San Quentin was built in 1934 to hold a mere 68 men. Today, the death row population spills over into two other buildings that prison officials say are unsuited to the challenges of housing such a dangerous and desperate group -- and both are already filled to capacity.
"This is a safety issue," said Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections. The vast majority of death row inmates now live in a unit constructed in 1927 that she said challenges guards with too many blind spots and provides only a single barrier to the rest of the prison.
"The only thing separating those 450 men from the rest of the population is a wall and a walkway and a bay," she said. "If that wall came down in an earthquake, I don't even want to imagine what would happen."
Only a single fence corrals the yard where death row inmates are permitted to enjoy the sun and fresh air; on a recent morning, they were kept inside because the bay's blanket of fog had dropped so low that guards could not see the far corners of the yard.
