California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday he will commute every death sentence in the state to life in prison without the possibility of parole, wiping out the largest death row in the Western Hemisphere with 548 people on it, 529 men and 19 women, according to ABC7.
In a letter he shared with the announcement, Newsom said he was using his "constitutional clemency authority" and that "state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California's values, undermines the foundations of our legal system, and diminishes each of us." Presumably the diminishment of the victims was less incompatible.
He called it one of the most difficult decisions of his career and wrote, "I alone bear responsibility for this decision and its impact," while acknowledging it will resurface painful memories for victims' families.
The commutations are not final for most of the condemned. The state constitution requires California Supreme Court approval to grant clemency to anyone convicted of a felony more than once, which ABC7 reports applies to 382 of the 548 cases, about 70%. The other 166 do not need the court's sign-off.
Nobody has been executed in California since Clarence Ray Allen at San Quentin on Jan. 17, 2006, as KTVU notes, and Newsom imposed a moratorium on executions in 2019.
