California Governor Gavin Newsom announced on Thursday that he is commuting every death sentence in his state to life in prison without the possibility of parole, emptying the largest death row in the United States in what experts call the largest mass commutation in American history. The sweeping clemency grant affects 548 people and comes nearly eight years after Newsom halted executions in California shortly after taking office.
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| File photo: California Gov. Gavin Newsom. (Official portrait, 2026) |
A Sweeping Use of Clemency
Newsom announced the decision in a three-page open letter addressed to "all Californians," arguing that the state's death penalty is unjust, error-prone and incompatible with the state's values. "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," he wrote.
Under the governor's order, the death sentences of all 548 condemned prisoners — 529 men and 19 women, according to state figures cited in reporting — will be commuted to life in prison without eligibility for parole. California holds the largest death row in the Western Hemisphere, and its condemned population accounts for more than a quarter of everyone sentenced to death in the United States.
The Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit that tracks capital punishment, described the move as the largest mass commutation of death sentences in U.S. history. The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization, reported that if the commutations stand, the number of people sentenced to death nationwide will fall by nearly a third.
Newsom called the decision one of the "most difficult" of his career in the letter, acknowledging the families of victims while insisting the action was righteous. He stressed that the commutations apply only to current death sentences. The death penalty itself remains on the books in California, and prosecutors can still seek it in new cases unless voters or the legislature repeal it. A future governor could also resume executions.
Why Now
The timing of the announcement drew immediate attention. It came two days after the November 3 midterm elections, in which Democrats swept control of both chambers of Congress, and in the final weeks of Newsom's second and final term as governor. Newsom, a Democrat who is widely expected to seek his party's presidential nomination in 2028, leaves office in January.
The governor imposed a moratorium on executions in March 2019, about two months after he was first sworn in, and he has long been a vocal opponent of capital punishment. California has not carried out an execution in two decades. The state's most recent execution was in 2006, when Clarence Ray Allen, 76, was put to death by lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison.
Since the death penalty was reinstated in the modern era, California has executed just 13 people, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The system has also slowed dramatically at the front end: only five people received death sentences in California in 2025, down from 42 in 1999. As of April of this year, 68 percent of the people under a death sentence in California were defendants of color, according to the center.
Voters have twice declined to abolish the death penalty, rejecting repeal measures in 2012 and 2016. Newsom's commutation does not override those votes — it uses the governor's clemency power over existing sentences rather than changing the law itself.
What Happens Next for the 548
The commutations will not all take effect at once. Under the California Constitution, the state Supreme Court must review clemency granted to any offender convicted of more than one felony. According to the governor's office, 382 of the cases fall into that category and will need the court's approval.
The Death Penalty Information Center said the grants take effect immediately for about one-third of the people on death row, while the other two-thirds await court review. No timeline for that review has been announced. CalMatters reported that four of the court's seven justices must sign off in those cases.
Once the commutations are final, the men and women who were on death row will serve life sentences without the possibility of parole. The move effectively ends California's death row as it has existed for decades, even though the punishment technically remains available for future cases.
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| File photo: The entrance to San Quentin State Prison in California. |
Who Is on Death Row
The people whose sentences were commuted include some of the most notorious convicted killers in California history. Among them are serial killer Randy Kraft, known as the "Southern California Strangler"; Charles Ng, who was convicted of killing 11 people in California in the 1980s; and Richard Allen Davis, who kidnapped and killed 12-year-old Polly Klaas in 1993. Lonnie Franklin, nicknamed the "Grim Sleeper," was convicted of killing nine women and one teenage girl in Los Angeles, and investigators believe he may have had as many as 25 victims.
The condemned population is heavily concentrated in Southern California. Los Angeles County alone had the largest number, with 119 inmates, according to state corrections data. Nearly two-thirds of all condemned inmates came from five Southern California counties: Los Angeles, Riverside, Orange, San Bernardino and San Diego. Riverside County had 87 inmates on death row.
Reaction: Praise and Fury
The announcement drew sharply divided reactions. Supporters called it a historic correction to a broken system, pointing to the racial disparities on death row, the decades-long delays between sentencing and execution, and the risk of wrongful convictions.
But prosecutors, sheriffs and victims' advocates reacted with fury. Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin said Newsom did not notify the state's district attorneys before announcing the commutations or seek individual input from victims' families. Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who recently ended his own campaign for governor, also harshly criticized the decision.
Victim advocates told reporters they plan to challenge the commutations in court. Critics in Congress accused the governor of waiting until two days after the election to overrule 548 death sentences handed down by juries and judges across the state. For families who spent years, and in some cases decades, waiting for executions that never came, the announcement reopened painful questions about whether the sentences imposed in their loved ones' cases would ever be carried out.
What This Means
Newsom's decision reshapes the national map of capital punishment in a single stroke. With California's death row emptied, Florida is poised to hold the largest death row in the country, and the total number of people under a death sentence in the United States will drop sharply. The move also sharpens a long-running divide between states that still carry out executions regularly and states that have abandoned the practice in all but name.
The decision is likely to become a defining issue in the 2028 Democratic presidential primary if Newsom runs, as widely expected. It gives him a clear, high-profile record on criminal justice reform to present to Democratic voters, while also handing his critics a ready-made attack: that he overruled hundreds of jury verdicts in the final weeks of his governorship.
It also tests the limits of executive clemency. The California Supreme Court's review of the 382 multi-felony cases will determine whether the full scope of the commutation survives, and any legal challenge from victims' groups could add further delays. How the court handles those cases will set a precedent for how far a governor's clemency power can reach.
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| File photo: The California State Capitol in Sacramento. |
What Happens Next
The immediate focus now turns to the California Supreme Court, which must decide whether to approve the commutations for the majority of the condemned prisoners. There is no announced schedule for that review, and the process could take months. Legal challenges from victims' advocates could also land in court in the coming weeks.
Newsom leaves office in January, and his successor will inherit a death penalty system that is still on the books but has no one left on death row. Whether a future governor revives executions — and whether prosecutors continue to seek death sentences in new cases — will determine whether California's two-decade pause on executions becomes permanent in practice.
For the 548 people whose sentences were commuted, the change is immediate and concrete: they will live out their lives in prison instead of facing execution. For the families of their victims, and for a state that has debated the death penalty for decades, the argument over what justice requires is far from over.
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