Gov. Gavin Newsom announced today that he is exercising his clemency authority to commute all 548 California death sentences to life without the possibility of parole.
“State-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values, undermines the foundations of our legal system and diminishes each of us,” Mr. Newsom wrote in an open letter to Californians. “I know we cannot execute people in our imperfect legal system and remain true to our core values, first among them justice and human decency.”
The decision is a historic development that sets a national standard for moral courage and leadership. “Today I am acting on my long and deeply held conviction that individually and collectively we are stronger as a society when we reject state-sanctioned killing,” the governor wrote.
“Gov. Newsom just took a historic step toward ending the death penalty in California by commuting the largest death row in America,” said EJI Director Bryan Stevenson. “This extraordinary act advances public safety, responds to horrific failures of capital punishment, and uplifts basic human rights.”
California has the largest death row in the Western Hemisphere, with more than 500 people sentenced to death in the state. Gov. Newsom’s momentous action commutes about a quarter of all death sentences nationwide.
The decision recognizes that California’s death penalty is broken beyond repair. “By every measure, California’s system for administering the death penalty is a failure,” Gov. Newsom wrote. “It has not been and cannot be fairly applied and has resulted in the conviction of innocent people. Decades of efforts to repair the system have only compounded its stagnation.”
Advocates are applauding the governor’s courageous decision as a smart and commonsense response to a system that is indefensibly arbitrary.
“These commutations reflect what justice demands: an end to a racist, error-prone, and inhumane punishment that has burdened California for far too long,” Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement. “By taking this step, Gov. Newsom has affirmed that the death penalty has no place in California and he showed real courage by confronting racialized injustice head-on.”
Gov. Newsom spent time in Montgomery at our Legacy Sites, learning about our nation’s history of racial injustice and how its legacy fuels the continued use of capital punishment.
He engaged recently in conversation with EJI director Bryan Stevenson, who emphasized the unfairness of a death penalty that treats people better if they are rich and guilty than if they are poor and innocent.
For all of these reasons, the governor concluded in today’s announcement, “the death penalty is inherently incompatible with our legal system’s commitment to justice.”
Today, the governor provided official notice to victims’ family members and district attorneys. After 10 days, he will commute about one-third of death sentences on his own. The other two-thirds require concurrence from the California Supreme Court. The governor submitted those cases to the Court today. Once the Court has ruled, he can move forward with full commutation.
Gov. Newsom said that he was compelled to follow his conscience before he leaves office in January. The clemency power “exists for moments when law as applied cannot be squared with justice,” he wrote. “For me, this is that moment.”