Senator questions moving prison’s death chamber

Thursday, Feb. 20, 2003 | 8:48 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A state senator suggested Wednesday it might be a waste of $250,000 to relocate the state's death chamber.

Sen. Bob Coffin, D-Las Vegas, said since there is less than one execution a year, prison officials should submit "compelling reasons" why the chamber should be moved from the second floor to the first floor in the state prison in Carson City.

"It's worked for so many years," Coffin said during a Senate-Assembly budget subcommittee hearing on the proposed Department of Corrections spending program.

Glen Whorton, assistant director for operations, said the prison has to allow survivors of victims to be present.

"In the past, there's been a problem with access and mobility," he told the subcommittee.

The chamber and the viewing area are "very confined," Whorton said, and it is hard for staff to get around in the chamber. "The environment is not appropriate."

The chamber, on the second floor of the Nevada State Prison, was formerly used for execution by gas, so it was built small. It now has a gurney where an inmate is strapped down and receives a lethal injection.

Whorton said the chamber is so small that correctional officers can barely move around to tighten the straps on the inmate.

The death chamber would be moved to the first floor of the prison and provide more space, Whorton said.