Marilyn (Sandy) Friend remembers the exact image that haunts her still: the knife wounds across her 8-year-old son’s face, the only part of his body investigators would let her see after his murder nearly three decades ago.
Michael Lyons was walking home from his Yuba City elementary school on May 16, 1996, when Robert Boyd Rhoades abducted him, drove him to an isolated stretch along the Feather River, and subjected him to 10 hours of rape and torture before killing him. Rhoades was later sentenced to death for the crime.
On Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom commuted that sentence — along with those of all 548 inmates on California’s death row — to life in prison without parole, in one of the final major acts of his governorship.
For Friend and other relatives of murder victims across the state, the announcement reopened wounds that decades of appeals, hearings and court dates had never allowed to fully close.
“These are not just numbers on a legal document,” Friend said. “Each case has a family left behind. Each case has a story of a horrific, violent end to someone’s loved one. To wipe all of that away with one stroke of a pen, without looking at the details or looking into the eyes of the families, was completely unthinkable.”
In a letter explaining his decision, Newsom called it one of the hardest choices of his tenure — not because he questioned its merit, he wrote, but because he understood the pain it would stir for victims’ families. The commutations still require sign-off from the California Supreme Court for roughly 400 of the inmates convicted of multiple felonies.
California has not carried out an execution since 2006, even though voters have repeatedly upheld the death penalty at the ballot box over the past half-century. Newsom imposed a moratorium on executions shortly after taking office, and courts had already stalled the process for years before that.
CalMatters spoke with several relatives of murder victims in the aftermath of Thursday’s announcement. Their reactions spanned the emotional spectrum — from quiet resignation to raw anger.
A mother’s enduring grief
Friend said learning of the commutations felt like a fresh betrayal, layered on top of the agony her family has carried for nearly 30 years.
“I feel a deep, soul-hurting pain and an angry, screaming feeling inside,” she said. “We fought for justice, and now one man has swiped away these monsters’ true sentences in one moment, just like the monsters who took our loved ones’ voices and silenced our loved ones.”
She remains uneasy about Rhoades, now 73, ever walking free, despite Newsom’s assurances that none of the inmates whose sentences were commuted will be released. Her concern isn’t unfounded — just last December, Rhoades’ latest bid to reduce his sentence was rejected by the courts. He had tried to use a 2021 law, signed by Newsom, that allows certain inmates to petition for reduced sentences.
Fighting that petition forced Friend and her family back into a courtroom to relive the worst chapter of their lives once again.
“He was a little boy. He was my son,” she said. “He had a voice, and that voice deserved to be heard, just as the voices of the hundreds of other victims and their loved ones deserved to be heard.”
A sister finds peace, if not forgiveness
Not everyone reacted with outrage. LaVerne Brison, 75, lost her sister, Cynthia Annette Johnson, to Chester Dewayne Turner, a serial killer who terrorized the Figueroa Corridor of South Los Angeles during the crack epidemic of the 1980s and ’90s. Turner was ultimately linked to 14 murders, including Johnson’s, whose body was found in February 1997.
Brison, a retired nurse now living in Georgia, said she holds no anger toward Newsom.
“I don’t put the blame on him,” she said. “After all, he just inherited it. If he didn’t do anything, what was the next governor going to do?”
Her feelings about capital punishment itself are complicated. “I was a nurse. I saved lives. I don’t believe in killing,” she said. “But there are people who deserve it. And he’s one of them.”
Brison said she has chosen not to dwell on Turner, now 60 and incarcerated at California State Prison, Los Angeles County.
“I choose not to waste any time on him,” she said. “I don’t let him invade my thoughts. He’s not worth it. He really isn’t worth it.”
A mother mourns a fallen officer
Phyllis Loya, 78, a retired attorney, didn’t mince words about her reaction to the governor’s decision. Her son, Pittsburg Police Officer Larry Lasater, was fatally shot in April 2005 while chasing down two armed robbery suspects who had fled a grocery store bank branch heist.
One of the suspects, 18-year-old Alexander Rashad Hamilton, opened fire from the brush, striking Lasater twice before continuing to shoot at other officers until he ran out of ammunition. At his sentencing, Hamilton reportedly showed no interest in hearing from Lasater’s family, telling the judge to simply move the proceedings along.
Hamilton, now 39, is incarcerated at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego.
Lasater, a Marine reservist who had volunteered to lead his former tank unit during deployment to Iraq, never got to meet the son his wife gave birth to two and a half months after his death.
Loya accused Newsom of putting politics ahead of victims’ families.
“It was a deliberate political decision, and he could care less about what happens to victims,” she said. “He doesn’t want our input. He doesn’t want to hear our stories. He doesn’t want to consider us.”
Her voice broke as she remembered her son.
“He was a wonderful son, and a brother, and a grandson,” she said, “and he would have made a spectacular father.”
Original source: CalMatters
