Newsom Commutes All 548 California Death Sentences to Life Without Parole
California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday that he will commute all 548 death sentences in the state to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, a historic mass clemency as he prepares to leave office.
In a letter to Californians, Newsom wrote that “state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values, undermines the foundations of our legal system, and diminishes each of us.”
“By every measure, California’s system for administering the death penalty is a failure,” he wrote, arguing it “has not been and cannot be fairly applied and has resulted in the conviction of innocent people,” according to coverage of the letter by The Marshall Project.
The Associated Press, Fox News, and CalMatters reported the action covers 548 condemned inmates — 529 men and 19 women — converting each sentence to life without parole.
California has not executed anyone since 2006, and Newsom imposed a moratorium on executions in 2019, later dismantling San Quentin’s death chamber, Fox News noted.
About 382 of the commutations involve inmates with multiple felony convictions and require California Supreme Court approval, with at least four of seven justices needing to concur, according to the Associated Press and CalMatters.
Newsom said those whose sentences are commuted “will die in prison but not by our hand” and will not gain a path to parole under new Board of Parole Hearings rules, CalMatters reported.
Victims’ advocates condemned the move. Marc Klaas, whose 12-year-old daughter Polly was murdered in 1993 by death-row inmate Richard Allen Davis, told Fox News Digital: “He just gave the gift of life to [hundreds of] people who took the gift of life from their victims.”
“He has definitely secured the serial killer vote now,” Klaas added.
Anne Marie Schubert of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation called the decision “the most grotesque violation of victims’ rights I’ve ever seen” and pledged a court challenge, CalMatters reported.
Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said Newsom cannot abolish capital punishment alone: “Only the Legislature or the voters can do that,” and Californians twice kept the death penalty on the ballot, according to Fox News and BBC News.
Term-limited Newsom hands off in January to Gov.-elect Xavier Becerra, a Democrat who has said he will extend the execution moratorium, BBC News and CalMatters reported.
Anti-death penalty groups praised the action as the largest mass commutation of death sentences in U.S. history if the court concurs, a framing echoed by The Marshall Project and the Death Penalty Information Center.
Newsom said he considered commuting only some cases but concluded that picking and choosing would “inadvertently create two classes of murder victims,” per his letter and Marshall Project reporting.
Prosecutors in counties that still seek capital verdicts can continue to pursue death sentences unless voters or the Legislature abolish the penalty, leaving California with condemned inmates in a state that refuses to execute them.
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