Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday that he’s commuting the death sentences of 548 people in the state. It would change their death sentences to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Over 30 of those individuals were charged, or had their day in court, in San Diego County, according to a KPBS analysis.
It is a major change for capital punishment in the United States. CalMatters reported that the prisoners represent more than a quarter of the nation’s condemned inmates.
In a letter addressed to “All Californians" Newsom said he is taking this action because he firmly believes, “that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values, undermines the foundations of our legal system, and diminishes each of us.”
San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan said in a statement the governor’s decision is a “devastating blow to the victims who suffered the loss of loved ones in some of the cruelest and most haunting ways and who have already endured a lengthy jury trial and sentencing that they counted on as a measure of justice.”
Stephan also said her office is “getting calls with pain and shock” from victims and that it is “researching any lawful remedies” that would allow their voices to be heard and considered.
The American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego & Imperial Counties executive director Norma Chávez-Peterson responded to the announcement too.
“Gov. Newsom has joined a chorus of leaders nationwide who have rejected the death penalty and recognized it as a failed and unjust experiment,” she said in a written statement. “This isn’t about individual cases, it is about addressing a system that is racist, fundamentally flawed, ineffective, and unfixable,” she said in a written statement.
The ACLU and a coalition of civil rights groups brought a lawsuit in April 2024 claiming that racial disparities in death sentences violate the state constitution.
Newsom’s office said the changes will not go into effect until the necessary legal steps are completed.
California's Constitution requires the state Supreme Court's approval to grant clemency for those convicted of a felony more than once.
All of this comes as Newsom prepares to leave the governor's office after eight years. In 2019, he placed a moratorium on executions in the state, but hundreds of people remained on death row.
The death penalty is still active in California. Voters rejected a ballot measure in 2016 that would have repealed the death penalty in the state.
The last time an inmate was executed in California was January 2006.
