Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decision to commute the sentences of more than 500 death row inmates last week — the largest act of mass clemency in U.S. history — closed one chapter in California’s long, uneasy relationship with capital punishment. But for prosecutors across the Inland Empire and beyond, the fight over the death penalty’s future is far from over.
California hasn’t carried out an execution since 2006. Newsom effectively froze the practice in 2019 with a moratorium shortly after taking office, later dismantling the execution chamber at San Quentin State Prison and dispersing condemned inmates to other facilities throughout the state.
Of the 548 death sentences Newsom moved to commute, most belonged to inmates still awaiting appointed attorneys for appeals. Only 45 faced any real possibility of execution if the moratorium were lifted — an unlikely scenario given that Gov.-elect Xavier Becerra has said he, too, will not allow executions while in office.
Even without Newsom’s action, a pending state court case could have accomplished much the same thing. Civil rights attorneys are arguing that California’s death penalty is applied with such severe racial bias that it violates the state constitution — a claim that, if successful, could halt new death sentences indefinitely.
The irony is that California voters have shown no appetite for abolishing the death penalty outright. In 2016, they rejected a repeal measure and instead approved one intended to speed up executions. Yet opponents of capital punishment say they don’t need another ballot fight if the courts rule in their favor.
What remains is a contradiction baked into state law. California is one of roughly half the states that still authorize the death penalty, and its criteria for imposing it are broader than any other state’s, according to the Death Penalty Information Center — covering everything from the killing of a police officer or public official to murders tied to gangs or financial gain.
Local prosecutors, including those in San Bernardino, Riverside, Los Angeles and Orange counties, say they intend to keep pursuing capital charges when the law allows it. That means California could continue adding names to death row even as the governor’s commutations work their way through the courts.
“I think for all intents and purposes, the death penalty is over in California and nobody will be executed again,” said Michael Romano, director of the Three Strikes Project at Stanford Law School, who also chairs a state sentencing-reform committee. He predicts advocates will now shift focus to other issues, such as limiting solitary confinement and overhauling the cash bail system.
Nationally, public opinion appears to be shifting too. A Gallup poll conducted in October, following a botched execution in Tennessee, found support for the death penalty had slipped below 50% for the first time in 55 years.
Newsom’s commutations reflect how dramatically California’s approach to criminal justice has evolved over the past three decades — from an era of tough-on-crime mandates to a system increasingly built around rehabilitation, modeled in part on Nordic prison reforms. Even Proposition 36, the tougher sentencing measure voters approved in 2024, emphasized treatment over incarceration for many drug and theft offenses, though CalMatters has reported that treatment mandates have been inconsistently enforced.
Not everyone sees the shift as an improvement. San Bernardino County District Attorney Jason Anderson, who opposed Newsom’s clemency action, said the law still permits the death penalty, and his office intends to keep using it. Since the 2019 moratorium began, his office has secured death sentences against five men — with a sixth likely on the way.
Louis Gabriel Lucero of Victorville pleaded guilty earlier this year to killing his girlfriend and her two young sons in 2020. A jury recommended the death penalty last month, and a judge is expected to decide in the coming weeks whether to impose that sentence or life without parole. If sentenced to death, Lucero could become one of the first additions to death row following Newsom’s commutations.
Anderson said he is candid with victims’ families about the likelihood that an execution will never actually happen, but that reality doesn’t change his office’s approach — or, he said, the decisions juries make when recommending the sentence.
Of the 40 condemned inmates from San Bernardino County, nine had their sentences automatically commuted under Newsom’s order. The state Supreme Court must still review the cases of 31 others who had additional felony convictions. Anderson has asked the court to unseal records in those cases so the public can see the details of the crimes as justices weigh the governor’s request. The Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which opposes the commutations, has filed similar motions, while public defenders and anti-death penalty groups have filed briefs in support of Newsom’s decision.
Anderson said he takes issue not with differing opinions on the death penalty itself, but with the governor’s sweeping, case-by-case bypass of the law. “You have a law on the books that’s essentially been overridden by one person,” he said, adding that if Newsom wanted to end capital punishment entirely, he should have pursued a ballot measure.
In a public letter explaining his decision, Newsom said he wanted to avoid creating two classes of murder victims — those whose killers “deserved” execution and those whose did not. “I have learned, however, from speaking with the victims harmed by these crimes, that each experiences their loss as the worst of the worst,” he wrote.
Rather than pursue another statewide vote, opponents of capital punishment are pinning their hopes on a case brought by the NAACP, the ACLU and the Office of the State Public Defender, which argues that California’s death penalty has been applied with glaring racial disparities. According to the lawsuit, Black defendants have been up to 8.7 times more likely than others to receive death sentences, and cases involving white victims are 8.8 times more likely to result in a death sentence than those involving victims of color. The state Supreme Court allowed the case to proceed in August, and a Sacramento County court is now reviewing evidence.
If the plaintiffs prevail, the death penalty would technically remain on the books, but counties would have to prove they had addressed racial disparities before pursuing capital charges, said Avi Frey, deputy director of criminal law at the ACLU of Northern California.
Natasha Minsker of the California Anti-Death Penalty Coalition said her organization will now focus on persuading district attorneys — including those in San Bernardino and Riverside counties, both among the nation’s top 10 counties for seeking capital punishment — to abandon the practice altogether. “The reality is most district attorneys in California understand that the death penalty is a failure,” she said. “That is where we’re turning our attention — to those counties that really are outliers.”
For Tinisch Hollins, a crime victim and executive director of Californians for Safety and Justice, the commutations offer a kind of closure that could allow the state to redirect its energy — and its money — toward victim services, mental health care and rehabilitation programs. Even for those whose crimes were once eligible for the death penalty, she said, what happens during their time behind bars still matters.
“Their fate is already sealed,” she said of those now serving life without parole. “What do we want to happen during their sentence? What do we want to put our dollars toward that will ultimately ensure our future safety?”
Original source: CalMatters
