Newsom to Commute All 548 California Death Sentences
The Facts
- California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday that he would commute the death sentences of all 548 inmates on the state's death row, the largest in the Western Hemisphere, converting them to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
- Newsom wrote in an open letter to residents that "state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California's values." The action does not repeal capital punishment, leaving future death sentences to prosecutors, juries and the courts.
- Under the state constitution, clemency for anyone convicted of more than one felony requires approval from the California Supreme Court. That means the court must sign off on 382 of the commutations, or roughly 70%, according to Newsom's office.
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The Spin
Left narrative
A state that has not executed anyone since 2006 keeps hundreds of people under a sentence it will not carry out, one that falls hardest on Black and Latino defendants and cannot be undone if it is wrong. Commuting every sentence ends the limbo, lets offenders die in prison and stops a future governor from reviving executions. State-sanctioned killing has no place in California's justice system.
Right narrative
Juries weighed each case, judges and appeals courts reviewed them, and voters twice rejected repeal, yet one outgoing governor erased hundreds of sentences with a single letter after Election Day. For families who spent decades in court, it says the murder of a child or a police officer does not merit the penalty the law set. Mercy belongs to the individual case, and a blanket order is political.
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