Newsom Commutes the Sentences of California’s 548 Death Row Inmates

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California moved to spare the lives of all 548 prisoners on the state’s death row on Thursday in the largest mass commutation of death sentences in modern American history.

Mr. Newsom said he made the decision because he finds capital punishment morally objectionable. He reduced every death sentence to life in prison without parole, a sweeping move that will require a review by the state’s highest court in some cases and could draw legal challenges.

“State-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values, undermines the foundations of our legal system and diminishes each of us,” Mr. Newsom wrote in an open letter to California residents. “I know we cannot execute people in our imperfect legal system and remain true to our core values, first among them justice and human decency.”

Mr. Newsom is not the first governor to empty a state’s death row, and California has not executed anyone in 20 years. Nor was it likely to soon, given that Mr. Newsom’s successor, Xavier Becerra, has committed to maintaining a moratorium on capital punishment.

But the many people sentenced to death in California makes his decision especially significant. California has more death row inmates than any other state, and Mr. Newsom’s action cancels approximately one-fourth of all death sentences nationwide.

In his letter, the governor described the decision as one of the most difficult of his career, “not because I doubt its necessity for our state but because I know its announcement may surface excruciating memories for victims’ families.”