Governor Gavin Newsom of California will be making a big move in the state’s prisons, announcing plans to commute the sentences of all death row inmates awaiting execution.
The last time a prisoner was put to death in California was in 2006, when gang leader Clarence Ray Allen died via lethal injection at age 76. However, Newsom intends to ensure there won’t be another.
An End to ‘State-Sanctioned Killing’
On Thursday, November 5, NBC News reported that Newsom wrote an open letter to constituents in which he confirmed he’d made a decision that was “among the most difficult of my career.”
As Newsom said, his decision to commute the sentences of the state’s more than 500 death row inmates had been a moral one.
“I take this action because I firmly believe that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values,” Newsom wrote, explaining that his executive order would affect the “548 people now under death sentence in California.”
As he pointed out, that number represents “the largest death row in the Western Hemisphere.”
However, Newsom will first require California’s Supreme Court to approve resentencing in cases in which prisoners had been convicted of more than one felony; according to Newsom, that applies to 382 of the prisoners presently on death row.
“I respectfully request that the Court issue its recommendation by the end of this year so that I may act before the end of my term,” wrote Newsom, whose term concludes in January 2027.
According to NBC News, California Department of Corrections Records (as of Tuesday, November 3) listed 561 inmates on death row.
Back in 2019, when 737 inmates awaited execution on death row, Newsom ordered a moratorium on all those sentences, issuing a statement at the time declaring the death penalty to be “discriminatory,” did nothing to increase the safety of the public and wasted billions of dollars in state funds.
‘Knife in the Back’
For some, Newsom’s decision is being heralded as a progressive step forward.
“This is a day that will be remembered in California’s history and resonate globally for years to come,” Amnesty International USA executive director Nadia Daar said in a statement. “The death penalty should be abolished, everywhere. Today marks a significant moment for human rights in California and across the country.”
However, that view is not held by everyone. That is certainly the case for Mark Klass, father of Polly Klass, who was just 12 years old when she was abducted at knifepoint from a slumber party and murdered by Richard Allen Davis.
Davis was sentenced to death for the crime — a sentence that Klass believes should be upheld.
Describing Newsom’s announcement as a “knife in the back” to him and the families of other victims, Klass told NBC News he was disheartened by the governor’s decision.
“It’s unbelievably disappointing,” Klaas told NBC News. “I was told that when this guy was sentenced to death that this was a system we can trust. But here we are, 33 years later, and it’s a system we can’t trust.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom to Commute Sentences of All Death Row Inmates