Gavin Newsom clears death row, commutes sentences for hundreds of prisoners

In summary

Gov. Gavin Newsom commuted death sentence for 548 state prisoners, saying “state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values.” Victims rights advocates criticized his decision.

Gov. Gavin Newsom is commuting the death sentences of 548 people, clearing the California death row for the first time since the state conducted hangings in the late 19th century. 

It is a monumental move in the history of capital punishment in America: The prisoners represent more than a quarter of the nation’s condemned inmates. 

And it is a decision Newsom has spoken about in starkly personal terms. In 2019, shortly after taking office, he issued a moratorium on executions just three years after voters rejected a ballot measure to abolish the death penalty and instead approved one to speed them up. But at the time, the governor said he couldn’t be responsible for killing another person. 

“After nearly 30 years in office I have come to understand the limits of what government can justly accomplish,” Newsom wrote in a letter addressed “to all Californians.” “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.”

Since 2024, death row has been a metaphorical place. The male prisoners were cleared out of their individual cells in San Quentin State Prison and distributed among other 24 facilities. Twenty female prisoners condemned to death were moved to general population at the Central California Women’s Facility that year. Even before Newsom’s 2019 moratorium, it had been more than a decade since the state performed an execution. 

Some of the decisions Newsom made Thursday will need court approval. For those convicted of multiple felonies, four of seven judges on the Supreme Court will have to sign off on the commutations. 

Newsom said those with the commuted sentences will not be eligible for new Board of Parole Hearings commutation and resentencing regulations. That addresses some concerns prosecutors, victims’ groups and supporters of the death penalty had expressed as they anticipated Newsom’s decision: that those newly sentenced to life might get a chance later to be released. 

His anticipated decision garnered sharp condemnation in recent weeks from those groups, who argued it flew in the face of juries and judges that had upheld the death sentences, and voters who have upheld the practice. 

“I don’t think he or any person should undo the sentence rendered by a jury and signed off by a judge because of his personal beliefs or feelings,” said Topo Padilla, president of Crime Victims United, last week. 

Newsom said in his letter that the decision is among the most difficult of his career, “not because I doubt its necessity for our state but because I know its announcement may surface excruciating memories for victims’ families.” He said after meeting with them over the years, he considered commuting only some sentences but “that attempting to distinguish among crimes and offenders for clemency would inadvertently create two classes of murder victims — those whose perpetrators deserve the death penalty and then the rest.”

Natasha Minsker, former director of the American Civil Liberties Union of California’s Center for Advocacy and Policy, said the death penalty is now a forgotten part of California politics. “I’m shocked, when I talk to legislators and tell them to oppose it, they say we don’t have the death penalty in California,” she said. 

Mary McComb, the former state public defender, said from her first case defending a man with intellectual disabilities who was charged with a capital offense, she has found a moral reason to oppose the death penalty. 

“One can always hope, but without the commutations, it’s not always guaranteed that governors would continue to have the courage to (maintain a moratorium),” McComb said.

In an interview before the decision was made, Polly Klaas’ father Marc Klaas said the prospect of the commutations “upsets me terribly.” After years of appeals, Klaas said he had already given up the expectation that Davis would be executed one day, at the time of Newsom’s moratorium. 

“But I was still secure in my mind that he and the rest of them would be on death row for the rest of their lives,” he said. 

However Polly’s sister said in a statement Thursday that she used to think Davis deserved execution but came to realize that his killing won’t help her recovery or public safety. 

“The system tells survivors that execution matters to our healing. It doesn’t. It’s a distraction from what we actually need,” said Jess Nichol. 

This is a developing story that will be updated.