Newsom Commutes All 548 California Death Sentences in Largest Mass Clemency in US History

California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Thursday that he will commute the death sentences of all 548 people on death row in California, converting every sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Newsom announced the decision in a three-page letter addressed to all Californians, Reuters reported. California holds the largest death row population in the United States, roughly a quarter of all death sentences nationwide, according to Bloomberg Law.

In the letter, Newsom wrote: "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 all of us." Bloomberg Law reported that Newsom called the death penalty morally objectionable in announcing the move. Newsom, a Democrat nearing the end of his second and final term as governor, is expected to seek his party's presidential nomination in 2028, Reuters reported.

What the commutations do

The commutations cover 529 men and 19 women, according to numbers provided by the governor's office and reported by the Associated Press. The action does not repeal the death penalty in California and applies only to people currently sentenced to death, USA Today reported. Anyone sentenced to death in a future case would still face execution under state law once the current sentences are cleared.

Not every commutation takes effect at once. The California Constitution requires the state Supreme Court to approve clemency for anyone convicted of a felony more than once. The governor's office told the Associated Press that 382 of the 548 commutations, roughly 70 percent, need that court approval. The Death Penalty Information Center described the split as about one third of the sentences ending immediately and the remaining two thirds going to the court for review before they become final.

The scale of the decision

The Death Penalty Information Center called the move the largest mass commutation in American history. It said the single action cuts the United States death row population by nearly 30 percent, leaving about 1,388 people under sentence of death across the country, the lowest number since 1984. It is the seventh time in the modern era of the death penalty that a governor has granted clemency to every death-sentenced person in a state, and the center said Newsom has more than doubled the total number of clemencies granted in capital cases over the last 50 years.

"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," said Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU, said: "Today, Gov. Newsom made history by announcing his intention to commute every death sentence in California and clear the largest death row in the nation."

A long pause on executions

California has not carried out an execution since 2006. Newsom imposed a moratorium on executions shortly after taking office in 2019, and only 13 people have been executed in the state since the death penalty was reinstated in 1978. California voters rejected a ballot measure that would have repealed the death penalty in 2016, the Associated Press reported. The commutations now go forward under the governor's clemency power, with the cases that need court approval heading to the California Supreme Court.