SACRAMENTO — California Governor Gavin Newsom is moving to commute every death sentence in the state to life without parole.
Newsom announced Thursday he’ll seek clemency for all 548 inmates currently on California’s death row, saying capital punishment is incompatible with the state’s values and justice system. The move comes seven years after Newsom placed a moratorium on executions.
Critics, including victims’ rights advocates, slammed the decision, calling it a painful blow to crime victims’ families. Patricia Wenskunas, founder of the California advocacy nonprofit Crime Survivors, which opposed the abolition of the death penalty, criticized Newsom’s decision. “My heart hurts for every one of the victims and every one of their family members,” she said, calling the decision “offensive” and “outrageous.”
His latest move came after he realized “the limits of what government can justly accomplish,” he said. “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 each of us,” Newsom said in a letter.
Clemency | Governor of California
Congressman Vince Fong (R CA-20) issued the following statement “Gavin Newsom waited until two days after the election to overrule 548 death sentences. If he believed in this decision, he would have made it while voters could weigh in. Instead, he hid it until the ballots were cast. That is political cowardice. In 2003, Vincent Brothers murdered five members of his own family in Bakersfield, including his three children, ages 4, 2, and six weeks. In 1994, Bob Williams broke into a Bakersfield woman’s home, raped her, and murdered her. In 2004, Marcus Wesson murdered nine members of his own family in Fresno. California juries sentenced them to death. Newsom overruled it. I will keep standing with the families who never stopped fighting for justice, even when Newsom won’t.”
The state constitution requires the California Supreme Court’s approval to grant clemency to anyone convicted of a felony more than once, which means the court would have to approve 382 of those commutations, or roughly 70%.
Californians voted via ballot measures to uphold the death penalty in 2012 and 2016. No one has been executed in the state since 2006 and California has the largest death row in the Western Hemisphere.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
