Newsom commutes all 548 California death row sentences to life in prison

California Governor Gavin Newsom has commuted the death sentences of all 548 people on death row in the state, converting them to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Newsom announced the decision in a letter, writing: "We can now let these offenders die in obscurity while we forever remember and honour the victims." He said he was exercising his constitutional clemency authority, arguing that "state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California's values, undermines the foundations of our legal system and diminishes each of us".

The move is largely symbolic in a state that has not executed an inmate since 2006, though experts say it could save millions of dollars in court costs each year. Only 13 people have been executed in California since voters reinstated the death penalty in 1978.

Clemency and its limits

Newsom said that after nearly 30 years in public office he had "come to understand the limits of what government can justly accomplish". By every measure, he said, California's system for administering the death penalty "is a failure" that has not and cannot be fairly applied, resulting in the conviction of innocent people. Life without parole, he added, is the most severe punishment he can lawfully impose and that the state can ethically enforce.

He acknowledged the decision would anger and hurt some Californians and would "always weigh heavily on me". "As governor, I alone bear responsibility for this decision and its impact, just as I alone would bear responsibility for each execution," he wrote.

At least four of the seven judges on the California Supreme Court will have to sign off on the commutations, CalMatters reported.

Political reaction

Newsom, who is term limited, is in his final months in office. Fellow Democrat Xavier Becerra is projected to take over after Tuesday's midterm elections, and Newsom has been discussed as a possible 2028 presidential contender.

Bernard E Harcourt, a law and civil liberties professor at Columbia University, told the BBC that it is not unprecedented for a potential presidential candidate to campaign as an abolitionist, noting that François Mitterrand did so in France in 1981 and "was rewarded by the public for that".

The ACLU's executive director, Anthony D Romero, applauded the commutations as an end to a "racist, error-prone, and inhumane punishment". Nathan Hochman, the top prosecutor in Los Angeles County, said that while Newsom has the power to commute sentences, only the state legislature or voters can eliminate the death penalty, and that Californians had twice chosen to keep it for the most serious crimes.

Nationwide picture

Executions have been on the rise in the US, and Newsom's decision followed the high-profile botched execution of a woman in Tennessee in late September. Three executions were scheduled for Thursday in Indiana, Florida and Alabama. The death penalty is legal in 27 states and abolished in 23 states plus Washington DC, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Among those affected is Keith Doolin, 53, sentenced to death in 1996 for murdering two sex workers, Inez Espinoza and Peggy Tucker, and shooting four others. He maintains his innocence. His mother, Donna Larsen, told the BBC the news brought mixed emotions. "At least the execution chamber will not be reconstructed, and no more killing by the people of the state of California," she said.

Source: BBC World.