SAN FRANCISCO -- The Schwarzenegger administration proposed completing a new execution chamber at San Quentin State Prison and providing more oversight of prison officials Tuesday, seeking to satisfy a federal judge who ordered California to devise a more humane way of executing death row inmates.

Under the revised protocols, the state still would put prisoners to death with a combination of three drugs, the same lethal injection formula U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel wanted reevaluated when he ruled that the state's execution procedures violated a constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The governor's staff and California prison officials told Fogel they think they can allay his concern that condemned inmates suffer unnecessarily -- and persuade the judge to lift a 15-month-old moratorium on capital punishment -- by changing the process by which the drugs are delivered.

Among the changes outlined are creating a "lethal injection team" at San Quentin whose members would be interviewed and selected by the prison warden. They would undergo training -- including a simulated dress rehearsal -- in each of the six months before a scheduled execution.

"The revisions to California's lethal injection protocol will result in the dignified end of life for the condemned inmate," officials from the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation wrote in court documents filed Tuesday.

In declaring the state's lethal injection methods unconstitutional in December, Fogel asked whether the three-drug combination was the best option. But he also noted myriad problems with the way the state carried out executions -- ranging from poor lighting in the overcrowded death chamber to improperly mixed chemicals -- that could render them so painful "it offends the Eighth Amendment."

The proposal submitted Tuesday is a critical step toward reinstating the death penalty in California, where capital punishment has been on hold since Fogel halted the execution of Michael Morales, a condemned rapist and murderer, in February 2006. More than 650 men and women are awaiting execution in the state, home to the nation's largest death row.

Responding to objections raised by Morales' lawyers, Fogel found substantial evidence that the last six men executed at San Quentin might have been conscious and able to feel pain when drugs designed to paralyze them and stop their hearts were administered.

State officials said they considered scaling back to one drug, but concluded it might cause prisoners to go into convulsions "with unpredictable consequences."

To address constitutional concerns surrounding the three-drug method, the revised procedures call for additional steps to be taken to make sure prisoners are unconscious before they receive the last two drugs.

After injecting an initial 1.5 grams of the sedative sodium thiopental, for instance, the executioner would have to "brush the back of his/her hand over the condemned inmate's eyelashes, and speak to and gently shake the condemned inmate" to gauge responsiveness.

If the inmate still is conscious after another shot of sodium thiopental, the executioner would have to begin the process again using a backup set of syringes before moving on to the next drugs in the sequence, the revised protocols state.

San Quentin's death chamber, built in 1938, was designed as a gas chamber. Under California law, condemned prisons also have the option of requesting to be put to death by lethal gas instead of through the injection of fatal drugs.

Earlier this year, the state corrections department started building a new execution chamber in response to the legal skirmish. The facility, being built about 50 yards away from the existing one, includes three separate viewing rooms, a holding cell and a large area for executioners to prepare the lethal injection mix.

Schwarzenegger ordered the department to stop work on the new chamber, however, after state lawmakers objected that they had not been consulted. The Legislature would have to approve funding for the work if it exceeds $400,000, and current estimates put the cost at more than $700,000.

Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, said Tuesday that state officials should "take a deep breath" and gauge the judge's reaction to the state's execution plan before legislators consider approving more money for a new death chamber.

"Judge Fogel never ordered the construction of a death chamber," said Romero, who chaired a hearing into the funding controversy last week. "What we first of all need to find out, would the judge even approve it?"

Eleven of the 37 states that use lethal injection have placed all executions on hold because of similar challenges claiming it violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.