California Gov. Gavin Newsom moved to clear out the nation’s largest death row Thursday, announcing his intention to commute every death sentence in the state, eliminate any possibility of execution and leave the condemned in prison for life without the chance of parole.
The Democrat, who leaves office at the end of this year and has been angling for his party’s 2028 presidential nomination, previously had a moratorium on executions, but he wanted something firmer before the end of his term.
“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,” he said in an open letter to his state.
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He acknowledged “indescribable suffering” the death row inmates had wrought on Californians. Still, he said the state “cannot morally kill them,” and he cast their lives wasting away in prison as a better outcome.
“We can now let these offenders die in obscurity while we forever remember and honor their victims,” he said.
The move seems designed to draw a contrast with President Trump, whose administration is set to carry out the firing squad execution of Nidal Hasan on Dec. 3. Hasan is a former Army psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009.
Mr. Trump has allowed the execution to go forward, though he has rejected Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s idea of broadcasting it live.
Mr. Newsom has unilateral authority to commute sentences of those with only the capital crime on their record. Under the state’s constitution, those with additional felonies must have their commutations reviewed by the California Supreme Court.
California leads the country in death row inmates with 548, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Nationwide, roughly 1,957 inmates face execution, including just seven federal or military prisoners.
Mr. Newsom said he considered separating the “worst of the worst” offenders and leaving their penalty intact.
After speaking to victims, however, he found that they all considered their cases deserving of the most severe penalties. So instead of having a two-tier class of murder victims, he commuted them all.
He said the move will bring “finality” but not necessarily “closure” to victims.
California has made repeated efforts to repeal its death penalty, including in 2016, when Proposition 62 was defeated, 53% to 47%.
It is one of 27 states that still have the death penalty.
The American Civil Liberties Union, a fervent opponent of the death penalty, hailed the governor’s action, saying he “made history.”
“These commutations reflect what justice demands: an end to a racist, error-prone and inhumane punishment that has burdened California for far too long,” said ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero.
Mr. Newsom’s action instantly becomes an issue for fellow Democrats in the 2028 presidential race.
Illinois, where Gov. J.B. Pritzker is considered a White House hopeful, does not have the death penalty. Pennsylvania does, but Gov. Josh Shapiro has imposed a moratorium and called for the state’s General Assembly to abolish executions.
A botched execution in Tennessee in September also drew scrutiny. Christa Pike survived two lethal injection attempts.
California’s last execution was in 2006, when Clarence Ray Allen was put to death. He had three first-degree murder convictions on his record.
Among those still on death row are some of the country’s most notorious serial killers.
They include Randy Kraft, the so-called Scorecard Killer convicted of the murders of 16 men and suspected in the torture and murder of dozens more, and Charles Ng, who helped Leonard Lake kill as many as 25 people.
Lake and Ng abducted women and sometimes entire families, slaying the men and children first, then torturing and raping the women at a remote bunker in Calaveras County.
Nearly two dozen inmates have been on death row for at least 40 years. Among the longest-serving is Jesse Gonzalez, who was sentenced in 1981 for the slaying of Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Jack Williams during the execution of a search warrant.
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