California already has the largest death row in the country and is now planning to build a new $220 million facility designed to house more than 1,400 death row inmates. State Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald M. George said that the large death row reflects the consequences of a careful appeals process that is designed to ensure due process for those facing execution. “The virtues of the system also represent its vices because it does end up causing a lot of delay,” stated the Chief Justice, a former prosecutor who notes that the leading cause of death on California’s death row is old age. Currently, there is a four-year wait for inmates to be assigned a lawyer to begin their first appeal and 118 people on death row have not yet been assigned a lawyer. “We take great care to try and appoint competent counsel….I could take care of that backlog in two days if I were not following the very rigorous standards that California has established.”

Since the state reinstated capital punishment in 1977, it has carried out 10 executions. There are 641 people currently on the state’s death row. (New York Times, December 18, 2004). See Representation and Costs.