Schwarzenegger halts work on prison death chamber

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has ordered work on a new death chamber halted after lawmakers complained the project was going forward without their approval and because its cost has exceeded expectations, a state prison system spokesman said on Friday.

"The project has been stopped and is going to be submitted to the legislature," said Seth Unger, a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The department began building the chamber at San Quentin State Prison in March in response to a legal opinion by a federal judge who called into question the state's lethal injection method of execution.

The judge in December said California's procedure was unconstitutional and gave officials until next month to come up with another one.

His concerns have put lethal injections in California on hold and threaten to end the procedure in a state that had 664 inmates on death row as of last week. A few have been awaiting execution since the late 1970s.

San Quentin's cramped death chamber, built in 1938, was originally designed to gas prisoners.

In 1993, California switched to lethal injection, which requires prison guards to strap an inmate onto a gurney and administer a three-drug combination through an intravenous line.

Prison officials are now asking lawmakers to include construction costs for a new death chamber in the state budget for the next fiscal year. They are also moving ahead to address the judge's concerns about how California carries out executions, Unger said.

Prison officials have until May 15 to address those concerns.

Unger said the original $399,000 slated for the chamber was inadequate and that prison officials seek more money from the Democrat-led legislature.

Democratic lawmakers, who generally oppose capital punishment, were angry that the work had started without their approval.

Schwarzenegger, a Republican who supports the death penalty, will present a revised budget plan to the legislature next month that will serve as the framework for final budget talks.