Gavin Newsom Moves To Clear California Death Row With 548 Commutations

California Governor Gavin Newsom moved to commute every death sentence in the state, a sweeping action covering 548 people and potentially becoming the largest mass death-sentence commutation in United States history.

The proposed resentencings would replace execution with life in prison without the possibility of parole. Newsom’s office said the group includes 529 men and 19 women.

The change will not become final for everyone at once. Under the California Constitution, the state Supreme Court must approve clemency for people with more than one felony conviction.

The Associated Press reported that 382 of the 548 cases require that review. The other 166 commutations do not depend on that multiple-felony review.

Newsom tied the decision to his long opposition to capital punishment. He said “state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values” and argued the system has failed to operate fairly.

California has not carried out an execution since 2006. Newsom imposed a moratorium shortly after taking office in 2019. The state later moved condemned prisoners out of San Quentin’s former death-row units and into the general prison population.

The scale reaches beyond California. The Marshall Project calculated that the move could reduce the national death-row population by nearly one-third if the court approves the remaining cases. Its review of decades of sentencing data also found that Black and Hispanic defendants were more likely to receive death sentences in California.

The announcement brought strong reactions from both sides. Some prosecutors, police groups and relatives of murder victims said a blanket action ignored the facts of individual crimes.

Civil-rights organizations and other survivors supported the move, pointing to racial disparities, wrongful convictions and the long waits built into the appeals process.

Jess Nichol, whose sister Polly Klaas was murdered in 1993, said execution had “absolutely nothing to do with my recovery.” Newsom said he also understood why other families would strongly disagree.

The commutations do not abolish California’s death penalty. Voters would have to remove it through a ballot measure, and prosecutors can still seek death sentences.

Incoming Governor Xavier Becerra has said he will continue the execution moratorium, leaving the larger law in place while the court reviews Newsom’s requests.