Newsom commutes all 548 California death sentences in largest mass clemency in US history
California Governor Gavin Newsom has moved to commute every death sentence in the state to life without parole, in what would be the largest mass commutation in American history — though most cases still need the state Supreme Court's approval.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has moved to commute every death sentence in the state, announcing on Thursday that all 548 people on California's death row will have their sentences changed to life in prison without the possibility of parole. If the commutations are completed, it will be the largest mass commutation of death sentences in American history, and it will cut the number of people on death row across the United States by nearly a third.
Newsom announced the decision in an open letter to Californians, in which he called it among the most difficult decisions of his career. He wrote that capital punishment was incompatible with the core values of justice and human decency, and that the men and women whose sentences he is commuting would remain in prison for the rest of their lives. "These offenders will die in prison but not by our hand," he wrote, adding that life without parole would let them "die in obscurity while we forever remember and honor their victims."
The action covers 529 men and 19 women currently sentenced to death in California, according to figures provided by the governor's office. It does not repeal the death penalty, which remains on the state's books after voters chose to keep it in 2012 and again in 2016, and prosecutors will still be able to seek death sentences in new cases. What it does is clear the existing death row entirely, for the first time since the state's 19th-century hangings that California will have no one formally sentenced to die.
The commutations will not all take effect at once. Under the California Constitution, the state Supreme Court must approve clemency for anyone convicted of more than one felony, and that covers 382 of the 548 people, or roughly 70 per cent of death row. At least four of the court's seven justices must sign off in those cases, and no timetable for that review has been announced. The Death Penalty Information Center said the grants take effect immediately for about a third of the people on death row, while the remaining two-thirds await the court's decision.
Among those whose sentences would be commuted are some of the most notorious killers in California's history. They include Richard Allen Davis, convicted of kidnapping and murdering 12-year-old Polly Klaas in Petaluma in 1993, a crime that helped inspire the state's "three strikes" law; Marcus Wesson, an 80-year-old who killed nine of his own children in 2004, three of them under the age of two; and Isauro Aguirre, sentenced to death in 2017 after torturing and killing his eight-year-old son. Newsom emphasised that none of the affected inmates will be eligible for new parole board resentencing provisions, meaning they will remain in prison for life.
The decision is the culmination of a position Newsom has held throughout his governorship. Two months after taking office in 2019, he signed an executive order placing a moratorium on executions in California, and the state has not carried out an execution since 2006. He has long argued that the death penalty is unjust and error-prone, and that it falls unevenly on the poor and on people of colour. In his letter, he wrote that after nearly 30 years in public office, he had "come to understand the limits of what government can justly accomplish."
Newsom is acting in the final months of his time in office. Term limits mean he leaves the governor's mansion in January, when he will be succeeded by fellow Democrat Xavier Becerra, who defeated Republican Steve Hilton in Tuesday's election. The governor is widely reported to be considering a run for president in 2028, and the commutation lands just two days after Democrats swept both houses of Congress in the midterm elections, a result that has sharply raised his national profile.
Reactions to the announcement split along familiar lines. Supporters of the move, including the Death Penalty Information Center, described it as a historic step that would remove more than a quarter of all death row inmates in the country at a stroke. Critics pointed to the crimes of the men whose sentences were commuted, and to the fact that voters have twice chosen to keep capital punishment. The governor's office noted that the families of victims were informed before the announcement, and that the commutations do not erase the convictions themselves.
The timing also drew attention beyond California. Three executions were scheduled to take place elsewhere in the United States on the same day Newsom issued his commutation, including that of Jesse Guardado in Florida, convicted of the 2004 stabbing and beating death of 75-year-old community activist Jackie Malone. With California's death row emptied, Florida, which had 235 people on death row as of 5 November, would become the state with the largest death row population in the country, despite Governor Ron DeSantis's recent push to carry out executions for prisoners who have waited decades.
What happens next depends largely on the California Supreme Court. If the court approves the commutations that require its consent, California's death row will be emptied in full, and the national death row population will fall by nearly 30 per cent. If the court declines some cases, those prisoners would remain under sentence of death, though the moratorium would still prevent any execution while Newsom remains in office. Either way, the decision is likely to become a defining part of Newsom's legacy as governor, and a central issue in any presidential campaign he chooses to mount, as the national debate over capital punishment enters a new and more polarised phase.
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