California Governor Announces Historic Blow to Death Penalty by Commuting Hundreds of Death Sentences

California Governor Gavin Newsom has announced he will commute all 548 death sentences in California.

This marks a historic step towards ending the death penalty in California and across the country. Until today, California had the largest death row in the Western Hemisphere, representing more than a quarter of America’s death row. These commutations modify each person’s death sentence to life without parole and will not result in anyone’s release from prison or vacate anyone’s conviction. Thanks to advocates’ tireless efforts, California has turned the page on a systemic injustice and set a powerful example for leaders across the country to follow.

“I take this action because I firmly believe that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values, undermines the foundations of our justice system, and fails to make our communities safer,” Newsom said in an open letter announcing his decision.

The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Southern California, ACLU of Northern California, ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties, and ACLU California Action joined the hundreds of organizations and individuals urging Newsom to take this necessary step to address the persistent and systemic flaws with the death penalty in California.

“These commutations reflect what justice demands: an end to a racist, error-prone, and inhumane punishment that has burdened California for far too long,” said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. “By taking this step, Governor Newsom has affirmed that the death penalty has no place in California and he showed real courage by confronting racialized injustice head-on.”

A death penalty commutation is the reduction of a death sentence, generally to life imprisonment. Newsom’s commutations, if upheld by the California Supreme Court, mean that all people on California’s death row who had a death sentence will no longer face execution, and will be resentenced to life in prison without parole. This change in sentencing does not mean people on California’s death row will be released from prison.

Newsom is not alone in commuting death sentences. Since 1976, seven governors and former President Joe Biden have commuted all or most death sentences in their jurisdictions, based on systemic circumstances not specific to any individual. These commutations were granted in states like Maryland and Illinois by governors of both political parties.

As people across the United States grapple with the gruesome realities of capital punishment — from high profile botched executions in Tennessee to the Trump administration’s cancelled proposal to livestream an execution, public support for capital punishment has eroded over the last five decades. This has shifted the responsibility to governors to address the harms of the death penalty by use of their executive authority, such as commutations.

Newsom’s announcement comes amid ongoing legal challenges to California’s death penalty system. In April 2024, the ACLU, alongside the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the Office of the State Public Defender, brought a lawsuit challenging the state’s death penalty statute as racially discriminatory and unconstitutional under the Equal Protection guarantees of the California Constitution.

The evidence presented in that lawsuit revealed pervasive racial inequality in California’s implementation of the death penalty. Black people are up to eight times more likely to be sentenced to death when compared to non-Black defendants in similar situations, while Latine people are at least six times more likely to be sentenced to death.

Since November 2021, every single person sentenced to death in California has been a person of color. Nationally, Black people are more likely to be charged and sentenced to death, more likely to be executed, more likely to be excluded from capital juries, more likely to suffer a botched execution, and more likely to be falsely convicted and sent to death row.

“As the ACLU and allies have documented in courts across the country, a person’s risk of execution is predictable, but for all the wrong reasons: race, geography, and politics. Such profound, systemic injustice demands a systemic response,” Romero said. “Today, California comes closer to closing the chapter on a cruel and morally and legally corrupt practice and sets a powerful example for others to follow.”

The governor’s announcement will impact all 548 people on death row in California. Two-thirds of people have been on California’s death row for more than 20 years. Dozens of individuals have spent more than 40 years and experienced decades of delays caused by California’s inability to provide lawyers to handle capital appeals.

Nearly everyone on the state’s death row could not afford to hire their own defense attorneys for trial. Currently, 70 percent of people do not have lawyers or funding for the legal work to challenge their death sentence.

The system also often gets it wrong. Nationwide, for every 8 people executed, another is exonerated from death row. Over 200 people have been exonerated from death row since 1973, eight of them from California.

This broken system comes at an enormous cost. Since 1978, California has spent $6 billion of taxpayer funds on a system that has executed 13. The last execution was carried out over twenty years ago, on January 17, 2006.

“I have also listened to crime victims and survivors, public safety experts, and religious, civil rights, and other community leaders,” Newsom said. “They do not speak with one voice, but from these conversations, with parents and children of murder victims, prison wardens, and jurors who served in capital cases, I have taken counsel and I am grateful.”

Under California law, the governor has the unilateral authority to commute death sentences in cases without additional felony convictions, or about 30 percent of cases. For the remaining cases that do involve additional felony convictions, the California Supreme Court will have to review and approve the governor’s commutation request.

While commuting all of California’s death row is a historic step, it does not get rid of California’s death penalty statute or prevent prosecutors from seeking new death sentences. The ACLU is continuing to challenge the constitutionality of California’s death penalty, as a system that violates the state constitution’s guarantees of equal protection and freedom from cruel or unusual punishment.

Additionally, on the same day as Newsom’s announcement, there were executions in Indiana, Alabama, and Florida. Even as momentum swings towards abolition, some extreme politicians are doubling down on the death penalty and trying to roll back progress. Now is the time for all of us to use our voices to demand a more humane and just path forward — one that leaves this cruel and antiquated punishment behind.