Newsom plans to commute all California death sentences to life without parole

Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that he’ll change all death sentences in the state to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Newsom’s decision comes as he prepares to leave office after eight years. In 2019, he placed a moratorium on executions in the state but hundreds of people remained on death row.

“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,” Newsom said in a letter addressed “to all Californians.”

Newsom moved to grant clemency to 548 people currently sentenced to death in California; 529 are men and 19 are women, according to numbers provided by his office.

The state constitution requires the California Supreme Court’s approval to grant clemency to anyone convicted of a felony more than once, which means the court would have to approve 382 of those commutations, or roughly 70%, according to numbers provided by Newsom’s office.

Newsom said the decision was among the most difficult choices of his career because it will surface painful memories for crime victims’ families.

“As Governor, I alone bear responsibility for this decision and its impact, just as I alone would bear responsibility for each execution,” Newsom wrote.

California voters rejected a ballot measure in 2016 that would have repealed the death penalty in the state.

San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan sharply criticized the decision in a statement, saying her office “was not given any opportunity to provide input or provide notification, support or services to the victims’ families ahead of the governor’s public announcement.”

She called Newsom’s decision “a devastating blow to the victims who suffered the loss of loved ones in some of the cruelest and most haunting ways and who have already endured a lengthy jury trial and sentencing that they counted on as a measure of justice. Our office is getting calls with pain and shock for being deprived of any input and consideration of their rights under the constitution.”

She added that her office is “researching any lawful remedies that would allow” those voices to be heard.

In a statement, San Diego Police Officers Association President Jared Wilson accused Newsom of being “more concerned with his presidential ambitions than respecting the will of California voters” regarding the death penalty. One of the inmates on California’s death row, Jesse Michael Gomez, shot and killed San Diego police Officer Jonathan “J.D.” De Guzman, 43, in 2016.

The American Civil Liberties Union, who has said the implementation of the death penalty reflects racial bias, applauded the announcement.

“These commutations reflect what justice demands: an end to a racist, error-prone, and inhumane punishment that has burdened California for far too long,” said executive director Anthony Romero in a statement.

The ACLU is involved in an ongoing legal challenge to California’s death penalty statute, alleging it is racially discriminatory and unconstitutional.

Locally, Norma Chávez-Peterson, executive director of the ACLU of San Diego &
Imperial Counties, said, “By granting universal clemency to all people with death sentences in California, Governor Newsom has joined a chorus of leaders nationwide who have rejected the death penalty and recognized it as a failed and unjust experiment. This isn’t about individual cases, it is about addressing a system that is racist, fundamentally flawed, ineffective, and unfixable.”

Newsom has said in the past that it is wrong for the government to kill its citizens and that capital punishment in practice has discriminated against mentally ill people and people of color.

City News Service contributed to this report.

Updated 9:40 p.m. Nov. 5, 2026