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Sad as it may sound, he said, getting sent to San Quentin “was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

He had come to terms with his death sentence, the prospect of lethal injection always looming, when due to political churns out of his control, San Quentin’s death row was itself declared at an end.

But under a series of executive actions ordered by Gov. Gavin Newsom — his 2019 moratorium on executions and his 2023 pronouncement that San Quentin would be transformed into a model for rehabilitation — it is unlikely that any of the 588 condemned prisoners in California will be put to death in the near future.

Even as prison reform advocates have celebrated Newsom’s efforts to abolish capital punishment and rebrand San Quentin as a place of hope and transition, groups representing crime victims and their families have responded with a mix of fury and weary resignation.

“All of us San Quentin inmates see being here as being in a retirement home environment,” Carpenter said.