San Quentin State Prison welcomed a new warden after the Acting Warden, Michael Martel, retired after only 10 months on the job.
Prison officials announced that Kevin Chappell, who served as chief deputy warden at Folsom State Prison, took over as acting warden for California’s oldest prison effective Jan. 3.
Warden Chappell has a lengthy history with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, starting in 1987 when he worked as a correctional officer at Folsom State Prison. Chappell rose through the ranks, eventually gaining the associate warden position at the department’s head office in Sacramento before going to Folsom.
Chappell graduated from the University of California at Davis and volunteers as a youth basketball coach, according to the Marin Independent Journal.
The appointment comes when the state is downsizing its prison population to comply with a federal court order. Currently, San Quentin is in transition from a reception center to an almost complete mainline prison. The conversion, and subsequent influx of inmates, has resulted in a slew of complaints by prisoners housed in the old reception center building (West Block) without power or television re-ception.
The new warden will also have to contend with the nation’s largest and growing Death Row, resulting from a court-imposed injunction by U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogle, which has halted executions since 2006.
The most recent hurdle against San Quentin’s executions is a ruling from Marin Superior Court Judge Faye D’Opal, who found that prison officials failed to consider alternatives to the lethal injection of three drugs used to execute prisoners.
This is the seventh San Quentin warden since 2004. Chappell follows Martel, who held the position for 10 months, and Vince Cullen, who vacated the position in 2011.
