Death row at San Quentin, as a place, is effectively gone. Since February 2024, California has transferred 512 condemned individuals out of the prison to other institutions across the state, the execution chamber has been dismantled, and the facility itself has been renamed the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center. Roughly 600 people in California still carry active death sentences, but none of them can be executed under a moratorium Governor Gavin Newsom signed in 2019, and most are no longer housed at San Quentin.
Where the Condemned Were Sent
The dispersal happened under the Condemned Inmate Transfer Program. Proposition 66, passed by voters in 2016, gave the state authority to house condemned inmates in any prison rather than concentrating them at San Quentin, and it required every able-bodied person under a death sentence to work while in state custody.1Legislative Analyst’s Office. Proposition 66 – Death Penalty Procedures Initiative Statute Penal Code section 2700.1 built out the mechanics: 70 percent of a condemned inmate’s wages and trust account deposits, or the remaining balance owed (whichever is less), is deducted and sent to the California Victim Compensation Board as restitution.2California Legislative Information. California Code PEN 2700.1
Receiving institutions must hold at least a Level II security classification and have a lethal electrified perimeter fence, which San Quentin itself does not have. Among the prisons taking the largest numbers are the California Health Care Facility in Stockton, California State Prison in Sacramento, Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility, and California Institution for Men. Each person is screened before transfer to confirm they will not pose a threat in the general population, and once placed, they can take on work assignments such as facility maintenance and laundry.3California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Condemned Inmate Transfer Program
The practical effect is that the centralized condemned housing model that defined San Quentin for more than a century no longer exists. The people are still under death sentences. They are simply spread across the state system and working.
Why No One Is Being Executed
Governor Newsom signed Executive Order N-09-19 on March 13, 2019, placing a moratorium on the death penalty in California. The order grants a reprieve to every person sentenced to death in the state and halts all executions indefinitely. It does not commute any sentence or release anyone. Every condemned person keeps their conviction and death sentence on the books; the state simply cannot carry out that sentence while the moratorium holds.4Office of Governor Gavin Newsom. Executive Order N-09-19
The same order repealed California’s lethal injection protocol, removing the regulatory framework needed to perform executions, and called for the closure of the execution chamber at San Quentin.5Governor of California. Governor Gavin Newsom Orders a Halt to the Death Penalty in California State workers dismantled the lethal injection facility, removing the gurneys, medical equipment, and chemical delivery systems. The room still sits inside the prison’s footprint, but it cannot function as an execution site. Reinstating executions would require lifting the moratorium, rebuilding the chamber, adopting a new lethal injection protocol through the state’s regulatory process, and surviving the legal challenges that would follow.
California’s last execution was Clarence Ray Allen on January 17, 2006.6California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Inmates Executed 1978 to Present Nothing has happened since.
Does California Still Have the Death Penalty?
Yes. Capital punishment remains a lawful sentence under the California Penal Code. The statute still authorizes death by lethal injection or lethal gas, with injection as the default if a condemned person does not choose within ten days of receiving an execution warrant.7California Legislative Information. California Code PEN 3604 Juries can still return death verdicts, and the roughly 600 existing sentences remain in force.
The moratorium is an executive action, not a constitutional amendment or a voter-approved law. A future governor could reverse it. That vulnerability is why advocacy groups have pushed for mass clemency grants, which would permanently remove individuals from death row rather than simply pausing their executions. Separately, broader legal challenges to California’s capital system continue through claims under the state’s Racial Justice Act and equal protection arguments under the California Constitution.
How Long the Appeals Take
Part of the reason California’s death row grew so large while executions stayed rare is the length of the appeals process. Every death sentence triggers an automatic appeal directly to the state Supreme Court; the defendant does not have to request it. If that direct appeal fails, the defendant can file a state habeas corpus petition raising issues outside the trial record, such as ineffective legal representation, juror misconduct, or newly discovered evidence. After state review is exhausted, federal habeas proceedings begin in U.S. District Court and can continue through the U.S. Court of Appeals.
Proposition 66 attempted to compress this by requiring the direct appeal and habeas process to finish within five years of sentencing.1Legislative Analyst’s Office. Proposition 66 – Death Penalty Procedures Initiative Statute In practice, cases still routinely stretch fifteen to twenty-five years. Clarence Ray Allen had been on death row for over two decades before his execution.
What San Quentin Is Now
In March 2023, Governor Newsom announced the transformation of San Quentin State Prison into the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, a facility organized around education, job training, and reentry preparation rather than long-term isolation.8California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The California Model The approach is part of what the state calls the California Model, built on four principles: positive relationships between staff and incarcerated people, peer mentoring, making life inside prison resemble life outside as closely as possible, and a trauma-informed organizational culture. The state looked at correctional models in Norway while developing the framework.
The centerpiece is the San Quentin Learning Center, an 80,000-square-foot complex completed in 18 months. A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held on February 20, 2026, with full operations scheduled for spring 2026. The building houses classrooms for adult basic education, GED preparation, and college courses, along with vocational training spaces, a browsable library, a media center, a computer coding program run with the nonprofit The Last Mile, an on-site café operated with a local coffee shop, and dedicated reentry service space.9California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. CDCR Announces the Completion of San Quentin Learning Center
The old condemned units and the mission they served no longer define what happens at San Quentin. The sentences remain on paper. The place that carried them out has been taken apart.