California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday that he will commute the sentences of every inmate on the state’s death row. The move would spare 548 condemned prisoners from execution, just two months before Newsom leaves office.
In an open letter to Californians, the Democratic governor said he will use his clemency power to reduce each death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“I take this action because I firmly believe that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values, undermines the foundations of our legal system, and diminishes each of us,” Newsom wrote.
California voters have repeatedly chosen to keep capital punishment. They rejected repeal measures in 2012 and 2016, and in 2016 they also approved a measure designed to speed up executions. Newsom acknowledged that history.
“California voters have voted to keep the death penalty on the books and I respect that,” he wrote.
The lame-duck governor waited until after Tuesday’s midterm elections to begin the process, which kept a death penalty fight off the campaign trail.
Newsom wrote that his decision follows “nearly three decades of openly opposing state-sanctioned executions as an elected official.” He conceded that the inmates whose sentences he is commuting committed horrific crimes. He called the decision one of the most difficult of his career and acknowledged it will reopen painful wounds for victims’ families.
“I alone bear responsibility,” Newsom said.
The governor cannot finish the job on his own. He can commute roughly 40% of the sentences himself. Under the state constitution, however, clemency for anyone convicted of more than one felony requires a recommendation from the California Supreme Court.
The action also does not repeal the death penalty. Prosecutors can still seek it, and juries can still impose it. Since Newsom’s moratorium took effect, prosecutors have won roughly two dozen new death sentences, many of them in Riverside County.
Newsom has steadily dismantled the state’s capital punishment system since he took office in 2019 and declared a moratorium on executions. That order formalized a pause that had been in place since California’s last execution in January 2006. The execution chamber at San Quentin was torn down, and most condemned inmates were moved to prisons across the state.
Newsom and other opponents argue the system is costly, cruel and discriminatory. In September, the head of the state corrections department said the biggest savings from commutations would come from fewer court transports, which take up significant staff time.
Anti-death penalty activists who have lobbied Newsom for years cheered the announcement. Natasha Minsker, a lobbyist who has worked with a coalition of advocates, praised the governor for showing moral courage.
Newsom said inmates whose sentences are commuted would be excluded from new parole board rules that could otherwise allow their sentences to be reduced further.
The decision now goes to the state’s high court. The outcome will decide whether a governor on his way out can effectively empty a death row that California voters have twice refused to abolish.
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