Newsom Considers Ending Death Sentences for 563 California Prisoners

Gov. Gavin Newsom, a possible presidential candidate, is seriously considering whether to spare the lives of all 563 prisoners on death row in California as one of his final acts in office, according to two people familiar with his thinking.

Mr. Newsom ramped up conversations with top advisers last week after a botched execution in Tennessee, though he had been deliberating the move for several months. He discussed his options in a flurry of phone calls, meetings and Zoom conversations, according to people familiar with the talks who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to disclose private deliberations.

California has not executed a prisoner in 20 years, and the leading candidate to succeed Mr. Newsom has committed to maintaining a moratorium on capital punishment. A mass commutation, however, would reduce all current death sentences to life in prison without parole, regardless of who runs the state in the future.

The governor, a Democrat, has received conflicting advice from his closest advisers, the people said. Some have urged him to take a bold step that reflects his moral opposition to capital punishment before he leaves office in January. Others have warned that he could face political attacks if he were to show mercy to convicted killers.

"I'm getting all those people in my ear: 'Don't do it. Don't do it,'" Mr. Newsom said on a recent episode of his podcast in which he nodded to the possibility. "Politics. That's the best they can do."

While other governors have ended death sentences en masse before, the move Mr. Newsom is considering would be the largest clearing of a death row in modern American history. In 2003, Gov. George Ryan of Illinois, a Republican, commuted death sentences for 167 inmates right before he left office.

California's prisoners comprise roughly one-fourth of people facing capital punishment nationwide, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

California's death row includes notorious killers such as Richard Allen Davis, who murdered Polly Klaas, a 12-year-old, after kidnapping her from her home in 1993. It also includes Cary Stayner, who killed four women near Yosemite in 1999, and the 1980s serial killer Charles Ng.

California has not executed anyone since January 2006, when Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, was governor. Weeks later, a federal judge blocked executions in the state when another prisoner was scheduled to be killed, and the California death penalty was tied up in courts for years.

In 2019, Mr. Newsom placed a moratorium on executions in the state. The favorite to succeed him as governor, Xavier Becerra, a fellow Democrat, has said he would keep the moratorium in place if elected.

Mr. Newsom's moratorium barred executions during his tenure but did not reduce sentences for prisoners on death row or stop prosecutors from seeking death sentences. The governor has faced continuous pressure from death penalty opponents to do something more durable. Mr. Newsom's office said that he has not made any decisions about death penalty commutations.

Under California law, a governor can unilaterally grant clemency to a prisoner with a single conviction, but the State Supreme Court must approve a clemency request for inmates with multiple felony convictions. If Mr. Newsom decided to commute sentences for everyone on death row, more than half of the cases would have to be reviewed by the court.

Matt Bennett, a moderate Democratic strategist who worked on Bill Clinton's presidential campaigns, said Mr. Newsom would complicate a run for president by ordering a mass commutation. "He is the governor of a very blue, very liberal state, and he has done a bunch of things that wouldn't happen in swing states," Mr. Bennett said. "Adding to the list is probably not something he should be doing."

The death penalty is still supported in many parts of the country, Mr. Bennett said, and Mr. Newsom would invite attacks that he is too liberal.

Still, public support for capital punishment has been on the decline nationwide for decades. A Gallup poll last year showed that 52 percent of Americans supported the death penalty as a punishment for murder, down from 80 percent in 1994.

Those urging Mr. Newsom to grant clemency have argued that it's the right thing to do and that it could have a political upside. It may appeal to liberal Democrats in a presidential primary, and some proponents say that a moral act could demonstrate authenticity.

"What the voters are looking for now are leaders who are genuine, who act based on their values and who don't act like typical politicians," said Natasha Minsker, a California lawyer who has led efforts to end capital punishment for more than two decades. "He's been absolutely clear that he is opposed to the death penalty, and acting based on that value, I think, shows that he means what he says and he follows through on his convictions."

Mr. Newsom recorded a lengthy conversation last month in Alabama with Bryan Stevenson, a leading attorney in the movement to end the death penalty, for an episode of the podcast "This Is Gavin Newsom." In brief flashes, Mr. Newsom seemed to weigh his internal debate aloud without disclosing many details.

"Do I commute the largest death row in the Western Hemisphere?" Mr. Newsom asked at one point.

"I think you do," Mr. Stevenson said. "And I think it becomes a really pivotal moment in this country."

Later, Mr. Newsom asked, "What do I say to the victims?"

California voters rejected measures to abolish capital punishment in 2012 and 2016, and Mr. Newsom faced criticism for going against their will when he imposed his moratorium in 2019. Back then, he said his perspective had been shaped by a conversation with Mr. Stevenson.

"It struck a chord," Mr. Newsom said in 2019. "Do we have the right to kill? That is a deep and existential question, and I don't believe we do."

He later pushed ahead by dismantling the execution chamber at San Quentin, relocating many death row inmates to other prisons and starting new programs to emphasize rehabilitation.

Topo Padilla, president of Crime Victims United, opposed Mr. Newsom's decision in 2019 to halt executions and said he was concerned that converting death sentences to life in prison would create more pain for people whose loved ones have been murdered.

"To have this governor turn around and overturn a judge or a jury who handed down the death penalty is disgusting," he said.

Mr. Newsom's current deliberations appear to resemble the same pondering he did in the weeks before he imposed the 2019 moratorium. His legislative secretary at the time, Anthony Williams, said in a recent interview that the governor had gathered his top aides for advice and to listen to diverging opinions.

"There was not universal agreement about it," Mr. Williams said. "And he was as incisive and challenging to one side as he was to the other."

Throughout his political career, Mr. Newsom, who is Catholic, has described the death penalty as a moral abomination rife with racial bias.

In 2024, Pope Francis praised Mr. Newsom when the governor visited the Vatican, according to Jason Elliott, who was a top aide to the governor at the time. Mr. Newsom approached the pope after waiting in a line of dignitaries, and as he stepped forward, the pope smiled and flashed him a thumbs-up.

Afterward, Mr. Elliott recalled, Mr. Newsom told his aides that Pope Francis knew about his moratorium on capital punishment in California and had greeted him as "death penalty man."

"I could see that clearly moved him," Mr. Elliott said.