Politician Carole Migden is upset that San Quentin prison officials have been quietly remodelling the death chamber, after a judge found that the death chamber didn't meet his standards. Politicians are complaining that San Quentin officials are violating some kind of trust of the people of Marin county by getting busy and quietly working to fix the death chamber. Carole Migden is calling for an investigation of why the prison officials were doing this work behind her back.
Carole Migden is one of the politicians who signed on to decommission San Quentin, that is do away with it. It would do away with San Quentin while we wait to build a new death row facility somewhere else in California. End result if that is done: Huge delays to the executions of many death row inmates.
She is upset that the prison officials added two more viewing chambers, after a judge said the facility was inadequate. According to new reports running for the past two days, she says it was "underhanded and sneaky". She says the people of Marin should have been involved in the delay process (decision process, as she calls it.)
How about this possibility: The people of the State of California pay for that prison to execute the worst of our criminals. If some judge decides it isn't up to standards, why shouldn't the prison officials get busy and fix the problem? Why should they wait for Carol Migden to tell them what to do? Executing criminals is, after all, what the people are paying the prison officials to do.
Sounds to me like some muddle headed soft on crime politicians are upset that their use of the judiciary to legislate from the bench by stopping the executions might fail if the problems actually get fixed. The politicians are upset they didn't get a chance to be involved and further delay the process.
BTW, Midgen's press release says she is battling the San Quentin project because it's final cost is coming out to somewhere around $300,000 per bed. But most of the money has already been spent! She claims:
"The Governor's budget proposes an additional $117 million to finish the construction of the new death row facility at San Quentin state prison which brings the final project costs to an outrageous $337 million—or $300,000 per bed," said Migden. "I believe that it is in the best interest of California taxpayers to sell the property and use those funds to construct a facility elsewhere in the state."
So how does deciding to move the facility somewhere else, after $220 million has already been spent, save any money? Can a new facility be built as quickly, and for as little money, as is being spent to finish the current construction? Selling the property isn't going to get any benefit from the money already spent on building a death row. It's not the kind of fixup that increases the value to a potential buyer.
Her objection is a cleverly cloaked means to accomplish more delay to carrying out the death row decisions of dozens of juries.
Other great links about Carole Migden:
- Carole Migden cheats by pressing vote button of an assemblyman
* [decommission San Quentin|http://dist03.casen.govoffice.com/index.asp?Type=B_PR&SEC={ADFFA2AD-C29A-4592-8781-7EC330958F3C}&DE={6E7514DB-424D-4668-8B2D-C3CA399AB863}]
 | Who is Carole Migden, a very brief photo gallery... Egads! Get a load of that hairdo!
Hmmm... Tried to just cut and paste the above legend to get the names spelled right, and look at all the other dreck that came with it. Gives a good idea of the nonsense that California democrat politicians waste their time on. Think about how much time is being spent on certain kind of special interests that vastly exceed their actual percentage of the population she has been elected to represent. Should a group that is maybe 1% of the population be getting 25% or more of the focus of an elected representative?
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