GAVIN NEWSOM COMMUTES ALL CALIFORNIA DEATH SENTENCES

California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Thursday, 5 November, that he had commuted the sentences of all 548 people on the state's death row to life imprisonment without parole. Newsom said he had exercised his constitutional clemency authority to make the change. “We can now let these offenders die in obscurity while we forever remember and honour the victims,” he wrote in a letter. He described life without parole as the most severe punishment he could lawfully impose and California could ethically enforce.

Newsom had ordered a halt to executions in California in 2019. He argued in his letter that the state's death penalty system had failed and could not operate fairly. He said its application had resulted in the conviction of innocent people. “After nearly 30 years in public office, I have come to understand the limits of what government can justly accomplish,” he wrote.

Newsom acknowledged that his decision would anger and hurt some Californians and said its consequences would “always weigh heavily on me”. He recognised that many Californians believed people who committed brutal crimes deserved to die. He said he had concluded that “the state cannot morally kill them”. Newsom also accepted sole responsibility for the decision and its impact, saying he would bear the same responsibility for each execution.