California Governor Gavin Newsom has announced a mass commutation of the sentences of all 548 people on the state’s death row, in what is described as the largest act of clemency of its kind in US history.
The decision means those prisoners will serve life sentences without the possibility of parole instead of facing execution. California has not carried out an execution for 20 years, despite continuing to maintain the largest death row in the country.
“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,” Mr Newsom said in an open letter.
The commutations must take effect formally before becoming final. About two-thirds will be reviewed by the California Supreme Court, as required under state law for clemency involving anyone with multiple felony convictions.
California death penalty decision praised by criminal justice groups
Criminal justice organisations welcomed the move, arguing that capital punishment is outdated, inefficient and immoral.
Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said: “Governor Newsom’s announcement marks a decisive moment in the history of the death penalty in the United States. Though other governors have granted universal clemencies, none have been at this scale.”
“By bookending his time as governor first with a moratorium and now this mass clemency, Governor Newsom has irrevocably changed California’s relationship with the death penalty,” she added.
Support for capital punishment in the US has fallen since the 1990s, although it retains majority backing. A Pew Research Center poll released in August found that 66 per cent of Americans supported the punishment for people convicted of murder, while about 73 per cent acknowledged there was a risk of executing an innocent person.
Death penalty cases frequently involve lengthy appeals, meaning many prisoners on death row are never executed. Critics have also cited the cost of capital punishment, its disproportionate effect on racial minorities and the risk of botched executions.
The Death Penalty Information Center says California has spent 6 billion US dollars on the death penalty since 1978 while carrying out 13 executions. It also says at least 203 people wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in the US have been exonerated since 1973.
Twenty-three US states have abolished the death penalty, while others have effectively stopped using it even though it remains legal. President Donald Trump, a Republican, has nevertheless backed capital punishment for serious federal crimes, and his administration pledged in April to expand federal executions, including through the use of firing squads.
Mr Newsom’s decision will reduce the US death-row population by nearly 30 per cent. It comes as he approaches the end of his second and final term as California governor, which concludes in January 2027.
