California Governor Gavin Newsom announced plans to commute all 548 death sentences in the state, an action that would replace capital punishment for the largest death-row population in the Western Hemisphere. Some commutations can proceed through executive authority, while most require an additional step from the California Supreme Court because the prisoners have multiple felony convictions.
Newsom asked the court to issue its recommendations before the end of 2026 so he can complete the process before leaving office in January. The governor said 382 of the 548 cases fall into the category requiring court review. His announcement therefore begins a legal and administrative process rather than instantly changing every sentence.
California has not carried out an execution since January 2006. Newsom imposed a moratorium in 2019, when 737 people were awaiting execution, arguing that capital punishment was discriminatory, costly and did not improve public safety. The new action goes further by seeking to remove every remaining death sentence rather than continuing only a pause in executions.
In explaining the decision, Newsom said state-sanctioned killing was incompatible with California's values and called the step one of the most difficult of his career. The scale is unusual even among governors who have issued broad grants of clemency. California has executed 13 people since the US Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to resume under revised laws in 1976, far fewer than states such as Texas.
The announcement drew immediate support from death-penalty opponents. Amnesty International USA described it as a major human-rights moment, while the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers cited concerns about deterrence, justice and the possibility of error. Their responses frame the action as part of the broader campaign to abolish capital punishment.
Prosecutors and relatives of murder victims strongly objected. The California District Attorneys Association said a statewide decision disregarded case-specific judgments made by juries and judges. Marc Klaas, whose 12-year-old daughter Polly was murdered in 1993, described the move as a betrayal of families who had relied on the sentences imposed after trial. Those reactions show that the policy changes punishment without ending the conflict over accountability and victims' expectations.
Newsom is term-limited, which makes the court's timing consequential. If the justices provide the required recommendations by year-end, he intends to act on the remaining cases before his term expires. Until then, the affected prisoners do not all share the same legal status: the governor has declared a universal objective, but hundreds of individual commutations remain contingent on the constitutional review process.
