Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, has commuted the death sentences of more than 500 people on the state’s death row on Thursday, a move that ensures they can never be executed under future administrations.
The Democrat’s mass commutation at the end of his term has converted all of the state’s death sentences to life without the possibility of parole, the largest clearing of any US death row in modern history.
The move comes after the failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee sparked global outrage and renewed calls for a nationwide pause on capital punishment.
Newsom, considered a probable candidate for president in 2028, has long opposed the death penalty and issued a moratorium on executions in 2019. He also dismantled the state’s physical death row chamber in the infamous San Quentin prison, transferring people with death sentences to other facilities where they had more freedom of movement and access to programs – for some, a dramatic change after decades isolated in solitary cells.
The last execution in California was in 2006, but hundreds of people incarcerated in the state’s prisons have continued to live under death sentences, making California home to the largest death row population in the nation.
Governors of both parties have taken bold measures to oppose capital punishment over the years, including an Illinois Republican who commuted all 167 death sentences in 2003 before leaving office. In 2024, North Carolina’s Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, commuted 15 death sentences in the state in his final day in office.
Support for the death penalty has been declining across the US, but Democrats at times have been reluctant to do mass commutations out of fear that Republicans will paint them as “soft on crime” politicians who sided with people convicted of brutal murders.
Newsom has supported criminal justice reform efforts, including changes to prioritize rehabilitative programs in prisons. But some advocates over the years have accused him of caving to political pressures on the issue, including when he has vetoed the release of high-profile prisoners even after they have been granted parole.
California is one of 27 states that still have the death penalty on the books.
