California Gov. Gavin Newsom moved Thursday to commute the death sentences of all 548 people on the state's death row, replacing them with life without parole and clearing out what remains the largest death row in the Western Hemisphere.
Those prisoners account for more than a quarter of everyone under a death sentence in the United States. The Death Penalty Information Center called the move the largest act of mass clemency in the nation's history; only about 440 death row prisoners nationwide had received commutations since 1972.
The clemency comes as the United States has carried out 33 executions so far in 2026, and as the Trump administration pushes to expand capital punishment, including by reviving federal firing squads.
Court approval required
The commutations are not final. California's Constitution requires the state Supreme Court to approve clemency for anyone convicted of more than one felony, a group that includes nearly 400 of the prisoners, and four of the court's seven justices must agree.
Newsom's office said the changes would not take effect until those legal steps are finished. According to his office, the group includes 529 men and 19 women.
In an open letter to Californians, Newsom argued that state-sanctioned killing runs counter to the state's values and weakens its legal system. He called California's capital punishment system a failure that could never be applied fairly and had led to the conviction of innocent people.
He wrote that he weighed sparing only some prisoners but rejected the idea, because sorting offenders would in effect rank murder victims into two classes. He added that the resentenced prisoners would be shut out of the parole board's new resentencing and commutation rules, addressing fears they might someday be released.
These offenders will die in prison but not by our hand,
Gavin Newsom, governor of California
Victims' families divided
Opponents moved quickly. Anne Marie Schubert, a former prosecutor who now leads the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, vowed to fight the commutations before the state Supreme Court and said victims' families had not been told in advance.
San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan called the decision a devastating blow to victims who had endured long trials, and said her office was looking into lawful remedies. Topo Padilla, president of Crime Victims United, argued that no one should overturn a jury's sentence based on personal beliefs.
The commutations reach some of the state's most infamous killers, among them Scott Peterson, who murdered his wife, Laci, in Modesto; Charles Ng, convicted of 11 killings in the 1980s; and Richard Allen Davis, who kidnapped and strangled 12-year-old Polly Klaas in 1993. Davis' case is among those sent to the Supreme Court.
Polly's family is split. Her father, Marc Klaas, said the prospect of the commutations upset him terribly, while her sister, Jess Nichol, said she had come to see Davis' execution as irrelevant to her recovery and to public safety.
Supporters cheered. Norma Chávez-Peterson, executive director of the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties, called the death penalty a racist and unfixable system. Dan Newman, a Democratic strategist who advises both Newsom and anti-death penalty groups that launched an ad praising him, said the governor acted without his political team and did not know about the ad.
Death penalty remains law
California has not executed anyone since January 2006. Newsom imposed a moratorium in 2019 and dismantled the execution chamber at San Quentin State Prison, three years after voters rejected a ballot measure to repeal the death penalty.
Capital punishment can be abolished in California only by a public vote, so prosecutors continue to seek death sentences, and a future governor could resume executions. Democrat Xavier Becerra, who succeeds Newsom in January, has pledged to extend the moratorium. Newsom is weighing a 2028 run for the Democratic presidential nomination.
