Newsom Commutes All 548 California Death Sentences to Life Without Parole

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday he will commute the death sentences of all 548 people on the state’s death row to life in prison without the possibility of parole, in what the Death Penalty Information Center called the largest mass clemency in American history.

Newsom announced the move in a three-page letter addressed to “all Californians,” near the end of his second and final term as governor. He leaves office in January because of term limits. The Wall Street Journal reported that he called the decision the most difficult of his career.

“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,” Newsom said in the statement, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

The commutations cover 529 men and 19 women, according to the governor’s office. California holds the largest death row in the Western Hemisphere, and the action cuts the number of people under sentence of death in the United States by nearly 30 percent. About 1,388 people remain on death row nationwide, the lowest number since 1984, the Death Penalty Information Center said.

Court review still ahead for most cases

The commutations do not all take effect at once. Under the California Constitution, the governor cannot grant clemency to a person convicted of more than one felony without a recommendation from the state Supreme Court, with four of the seven justices agreeing.

That rule applies to 382 of the 548 people on death row, according to the governor’s office. Their commutations will need court approval before they are final. The other 166 take effect immediately.

The move does not repeal the death penalty. California voters rejected measures to abolish it in 2012 and 2016, and prosecutors can still seek death sentences in new cases. Newsom also said the people whose sentences were commuted will not be eligible for new parole board commutation and resentencing rules.

Reaction split along familiar lines

Prosecutors and victims’ advocates objected quickly. San Diego County’s district attorney called the move a “devastating blow” to victims, and Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Hatami also criticized the decision.

Supporters included a coalition of victims’ families, prosecutors, former corrections officials, faith leaders, and civil rights advocates who had urged Newsom to act. Days before the announcement, 50 murder victims’ family members signed a letter asking for universal clemency.

Jess Nichol, the sister of Polly Klaas, who was murdered by one of the people granted clemency, said in a statement released by the Death Penalty Information Center that she used to think the man who killed her sister deserved execution, but came to believe that whether he is executed “has absolutely nothing to do with my recovery or with real public safety.”

Newsom placed a moratorium on executions two months into his first term in 2019 and later dismantled the execution chamber at San Quentin State Prison. California has not carried out an execution since 2006, and has carried out 13 executions since the death penalty was reinstated in 1978, at an estimated cost of $6 billion, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

The center said this is the eighth time in the modern era that a governor has granted clemency to everyone on a state’s death row, and that the 548 commutations more than double the total number of clemencies granted in capital cases in the last 50 years. Then-President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row in 2024.

Reporting based on coverage by Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, the Death Penalty Information Center, CalMatters, and Law Dork.