California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced plans to commute the death sentences of all 548 inmates on the state’s death row, a move that Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer criticized as stabbing crime victims “in the heart.”
Speaking on “Fox News @ Night,” Spitzer took direct aim at Newsom, saying his decision is “immoral” and arguing that it disregards the extensive judicial review given to death penalty cases.
“He literally stabbed in the heart many victims who have suffered through an already-unjust justice system in California that already revictimizes victims over and over and over,” Spitzer said.
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Among the victims’ relatives criticizing the decision is Marc Klaas, whose 12-year-old daughter, Polly, was kidnapped from her bedroom at knifepoint and murdered in 1993 by condemned killer Richard Allen Davis. Davis was sentenced to death in 1996, and the California Supreme Court upheld his conviction and sentence in 2009.
“Baby killers and cop killers and spree killers and serial killers have all found an ally in Gavin Newsom,” Klaas told Fox News Digital in October.
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Newsom announced the plan for mass commutations in a letter on Nov. 5, in which he told Californians he would exercise his “constitutional clemency authority to commute all California death sentences to life without the possibility of parole.”
The governor said he believes state-sanctioned killing is “incompatible with California’s values” and argued that the death penalty cannot be applied fairly, pointing to the risk of executing innocent people.
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Other death row inmates who could be affected by the commutations include Charles Ng, who was convicted of killing 11 people in the Sierra Nevada foothills, and Cary Stayner, who was convicted of murdering four people near Yosemite National Park in 1999 and was sentenced to death for three of the killings.
“Well, it was callous. It was calculated. It was mean. It was ugly. It was ill-spirited. It was [a] lack of any empathy. It was immoral,” Spitzer said of Newsom’s decision. “I could think of so many adjectives to describe the behavior of the cruel governor.”
When reached for comment by Fox News Digital regarding Spitzer’s criticisms, Newsom’s office pointed to the governor’s Nov. 5 letter announcing the commutations.
In the letter, Newsom acknowledged the emotional toll on grieving families, writing, “This decision is among the most difficult of my career, not because I doubt its necessity for our state but because I know its announcement may surface excruciating memories for victims’ families.”
Spitzer argued that converting death sentences to life without the possibility of parole (LWOP) could allow convicted killers to seek release if future changes to state law create a pathway to parole or resentencing.
“The legislature has tried to convert life without the possibility of parole to eligible for parole. So by converting death penalty to LWOP, it’s actually L-WALK: walk out of prison,” Spitzer said.
Gavin Newsom’s office, however, says the commutations would not make the inmates eligible for release and that the sentences would remain life without the possibility of parole.
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Newsom’s plan to commute 548 death sentences still faces a legal hurdle for hundreds of inmates. Under the California Constitution, commutations for inmates convicted of a felony on two or more occasions require a recommendation from the California Supreme Court with at least four justices concurring.
Still, Spitzer argued that Newsom’s decision has already revictimized families by causing additional suffering after years of legal proceedings.
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“Gavin Newsom says he can’t sleep at night. He should never sleep at night with the revictimization that he has caused to these poor victims who have suffered irreparable harm,” Spitzer said.
Fox News Digital’s Louis Casiano contributed to this report.