California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday that he will spare the lives of 548 inmates currently on the state’s death row, effectively clearing capital punishment in the state years after issuing an executive moratorium on executions.
In a letter to constituents, Newsom, a Democrat, declared the state’s capital punishment system fundamentally flawed, error-prone, and morally incompatible with California’s core values.
“After nearly 30 years in public office, I have come to understand the limits of what government can justly accomplish,” Newsom wrote. “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.”
Under the executive action, all death sentences will be converted to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The move comes amid renewed national conversations surrounding capital punishment following a botched execution in Tennessee involving death row inmate Christa Pike.
California has not carried out an execution since 2006. Shortly after taking office in 2019, Newsom placed an official moratorium on executions and ordered the dismantling of the execution chamber at San Quentin State Prison.
The decision drew immediate criticism from victims’ rights advocates, including Marc Klaas, whose 12-year-old daughter, Polly, was kidnapped and murdered in 1993.
Her killer, Richard Allen Davis, remains on death row.
“He just gave the gift of life to [hundreds of] people who took the gift of life from their victims,” Klaas told Fox News Digital, expressing disappointment over the decision. “I don’t understand his rationale behind it… but it’s probably the same old tired stuff that he said when he did his moratorium.”
“He has definitely secured the serial killer vote now,” he added.
Conversely, anti-death penalty advocates strongly praised the move.
“The silence after the very breath of a human is violently wrestled out of them is deafening,” Rev. Jeff Hood, a spiritual adviser to death row inmates, said in a statement reported by The Sacramento Bee.
“I’ve heard it 14 times. Today, Governor Newsom has courageously chosen to break that silence. These commutations represent the height of moral leadership,” he added. “Cruelty laid down. Now, I’m left with one prayer: God, don’t let any of the governors in the other executing states get any sleep until they find the ethical stamina to follow Newsom’s lead.”
Despite the move, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman noted that it doesn’t eliminate the death penalty.
“Only the Legislature or the voters can do that,” he said in a statement. “Californians have been asked on two separate ballot initiatives to abolish the death penalty and both times they have chosen to keep it for the most serious crimes.”
“Until the law is changed, my office will continue to evaluate every death penalty-eligible case with the rigor, care and restraint these decisions demand. As always, we will be guided by the facts, the law and the evidence. If the Legislature or the voters remove the death penalty, we will follow that law just as faithfully,” he added, noting that his thoughts “are with the families of victims, who deserve a justice system that honors the law as it is written and pursues it with fairness and due process.”
Dan Dow, the district attorney for San Luis Obispo County, said framed Newsom’s order as an insult to murder victims.
“Governor Newsom just told the families of Rachel Newhouse, Aundria Crawford, Kesha Gurke and every other innocent victim of California’s 548 condemned killers that the killers’ lives matter more,” he said. “Juries chose justice case by case, voters chose it five times, and one outgoing governor tried to erase it all with a pen.
California voters have consistently supported the death penalty.
In 2016, voters rejected Proposition 62, which sought to repeal the death penalty, while narrowly approving Proposition 66 to expedite the appeals process.