San Quentin State Prison

RECENT POSTS

October 31, 2011 | 12:18 PM | By

Extended interview: Prison official talks growing up at San Quentin

CDCR

San Quentin State Prison

Last week, we ran an interview with Scott Kernan, who was until recently, second in command at the California Department of Correcitons and Rehabilitation. Kernan has been at the center of some of the biggest developments in the prison system over the past few years: he was central to the controversy over obtaining lethal injection drugs from Arizona; he was the prison official who negotiated an end to the recent hunger strikes originating in Pelican Bay State Prison; and he has a singularly unique perspective on the system in which he’s spent almost his entire life. Kernan recently sat down with reporter Nancy Mullane to talk about these issues, as well as his childhood, which he spent on the grounds of San Quentin State Prison, where his mother worked. In an unusual upbringing, Kernan recalls the time a prison warden showed him the gas chamber where inmates used to be executed–and reflects on the culture that shapes the prison, its inmates, and employees. This is the full audio from that interview.

FILED UNDER: Corrections, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, San Quentin State Prison, Scott Kernan
October 26, 2011 | 8:45 AM | By

Exit interview: Prison official talks death penalty, hunger strike, more

Undersecretary Scott Kernan retired Friday

The past 13 months have been difficult for California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Last year, a new lethal injection facility was built in San Quentin. The state spent just over $800,000 building it in response to the allegation that it’s method of lethal injection was cruel and unusual punishment.

Fast-forward to May of 2011: The U.S. Supreme Court ruling to decrease the prison population led to the creation of a coordinated shift of prisoners to county jails, a plan called realignment, which just recently kicked into gear. The plan, in essence, is the largest prison overhaul in the department’s history.

In July and October of this year, the CDCR faced another crisis. Prisoners staged hunger strikes at Pelican Bay State Prison that spread to 13 facilities and involved over 6,000 inmates. All were protesting harsh prison conditions in the state’s highly restrictive security housing units.

In the middle of all these unfolding events was the man who oversees operations for the CDCR. Or he did, that is, until retiring just last week. Former CDCR Undersecretary Scott Kernan’s last day was this past Friday. He was second in command at the department, overseeing all of the facilities and institutions including 33 adult prisons in the state.

In full disclosure, Scott Kernan happens to be related to KALW’s News Director, Holly Kernan. The former undersecretary left his post after almost 30 years working in California corrections. A few days before he retired, reporter Nancy Mullane sat down with Kernan to discuss how he got interested in working with prisons.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Corrections, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Capital Punishment, Hunger strike, Pelican Bay State Prison, San Quentin State Prison, Scott Kernan
August 29, 2011 | 11:22 AM | By

Does San Quentin have a natural disaster plan?

San Quentin State Prison is vulnerable to both earthquakes and tsunamis.

As Hurricane Irene bore down on the eastern coast of the United States this weekend, New York City shut down its transit system and ordered thousands to evacuate. The city did not, however, evacuate its 12,000-inmate jail on Rikers Island, a low-lying, flood-prone stretch built mostly on landfill. As media bore down on the apparent forsaking of thousands of prisoners, it became clear that the city does not actually have an evacuation plan for its main jail. Fortunately, Rikers Island appears to have escaped serious damage. But the question of what to do with masses of prisoners in advance of a natural disaster remains.

California, the land of forest fires, earthquakes, and tsunamis, is also home to one of the largest prison systems in the world. So what would California do if one of its state prisons were threatened by natural or human disaster?

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Corrections, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Pelican Bay State Prison, San Quentin State Prison
May 27, 2011 | 9:26 AM | By

Governor Brown takes 180-degree turn on parole for lifers

Nancy Mullane

rnest Morgan being greeted by his mother Hilda McCline on 5/12/11.

While many prisoners ask to be released for medical reasons, others seek to get out because they have turned their lives around, even when they’ve committed the worst possible crimes.

Often though, those serving time for murder, for example, are denied parole, even if they’re eligible. That’s because for 20 years, the Governor’s office has had the authroity to reverse parole decisions and keep those offenders in prison, even if they were approved for release on parole. And that has been the trend, until now.

Since he took office a little over five months ago, Governor Jerry Brown is allowing the parole board’s decision to stand for 80% of lifers found suitable to be released. That’s a significant shift, a reversal of the policies of the past four governors, who cancelled or reversed the parole for 8 out of every 10 lifers found suitable for parole by the governor’s own parole board.

KALW’s Nancy Mullane has been following the stories of prisoners inside San Quentin State Prison who are serving life sentences for murder. Yesterday, she sat down with KALW’s Hana Baba for an in-depth look at the issue. (Transcript after the jump.)

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Corrections, Board of Parole Hearings, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Jerry Brown, Lifers, Parole, San Quentin State Prison
May 2, 2011 | 8:06 AM | By

No executions in California in 2011

Michael Angelo Morales is among the inmates on death row who are eligible for execution.

There will be no executions scheduled in California in 2011, according to lawyers for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. At a hearing last week in the court room of Federal District Judge Jeremy Fogel, lawyers defending the state’s lethal injection process from allegations that it violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment said that executions would not be feasible until 2012. The reason? There’s a new warden at San Quentin State Prison and per state regulations, he’s assembling his own lethal injection team. According to the Stockton Record:

That execution team will be chosen by late August and attorneys for the condemned prisoners won’t get documentation of their qualifications until December, lawyers for the state’s attorney general told a federal judge Friday.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Capital Punishment, Corrections, Judge Jeremy Fogel, Lethal Injection, San Quentin State Prison
April 28, 2011 | 1:03 PM | By

Brown calls off death row expansion

CDCR

San Quentin State Prison, home of California's male death row

Governor Jerry Brown today announced he’s stopping a controversial death row expansion project. Marin legislators Assemblyman Jared Huffman and Senator Mark Leno have both been long opposed to the project, which has been scheduled to go ahead for some time. In a press release, Brown gave his reasoning:

“At a time when children, the disabled and seniors face painful cuts to essential programs, the State of California cannot justify a massive expenditure of public dollars for the worst criminals in our state,” said Brown. “California will have to find another way to address the housing needs of condemned inmates. It would be unconscionable to earmark $356 million for a new and improved death row while making severe cuts to education and programs that serve the most vulnerable among us.”

California’s death row, which houses 713 condemned inmates, is said to be overcrowded and run-down. Opponents of the expansion project have argued that death row inmates could be distributed to other prisons instead of expanding the San Quentin facility. San Quentin is also the site of the state’s lethal injection chamber and has traditionally housed condemned male inmates.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Capital Punishment, Corrections, California Correctional Peace Officers Association, Death Row, Jared Huffman, Jerry Brown, Mark Leno, San Quentin State Prison
March 23, 2011 | 11:17 AM | By

Escape from San Quentin: how various inmates busted out

CDCR

San Quentin was the site of one such trial

From Nels Johnson’s historical piece on San Quentin State Prison in the Marin Independent Journal today, we learn that between 1852 and 1877, “a period of particularly horrible conditions at the prison,” some 685 inmates escaped from the prison–and only about a third were ever recaptured. Johnson details a few of the more dramatic escapes from that period and later.

For instance, in January 1935:

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Corrections, San Quentin State Prison