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Major Takeaways
Governor Gavin Newsom commuted every death sentence in California on Thursday, moving 548 people to life in prison without parole.
The move is the largest mass commutation of death sentences in American history and it empties the biggest death row in the nation.
People of color made up 68 percent of Californians under a death sentence, and studies found Black defendants faced far higher odds of condemnation.
The death penalty itself stays in California law. Prosecutors can still seek it in new cases, and 382 commutations still need court approval.
California Governor Gavin Newsom announced Thursday that he is commuting all 548 death sentences in the state to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The decision reaches every person on the largest death row in the United States. It covers about one quarter of all death sentences nationwide.
Newsom laid out his reasoning in an open letter to Californians. He called the death penalty unjust and prone to error.
He wrote that state sanctioned killing is incompatible with California values and diminishes everyone it touches.
For Black Californians, the announcement lands on ground tilled by generations of argument about who gets condemned and why.
The numbers behind that argument are stark, and they have been building for decades.
What the California Death Sentences Decision Actually Does
The commutations change sentences. They do not free anyone, and they do not erase any conviction.
Each of the 548 people will now serve life in prison without parole. None of them will face execution by the state.
The process will not finish overnight. The governor gave official notice to victim families and district attorneys on Thursday.
After ten days, he can commute about one third of the sentences on his own authority.
The rest require agreement from the California Supreme Court. A total of 382 cases involve people with more than one felony conviction.
Newsom submitted those cases to the court on Thursday. No timeline for the court review has been announced.
The action applies only to current death sentences. It does not repeal the death penalty, which California voters chose to keep at the ballot box.
Prosecutors remain free to seek death sentences in future capital cases. That fight now moves to courtrooms and to the next governor.
Race Sits at the Center of the Death Penalty Story
As of April, 68 percent of the people under a death sentence in California were defendants of color.
Research cited in a landmark court challenge found Black defendants up to 8.7 times more likely to receive a death sentence than other defendants in comparable murder cases.
The same research found Latino defendants up to 6.2 times more likely to be condemned.
It also found defendants of any race up to 8.8 times more likely to face death when at least one victim was white.
Newsom named that pattern when he halted executions in 2019, shortly after taking office.
He said the system had discriminated against defendants who are mentally ill, Black and brown, or unable to afford expensive legal help.
California has not executed anyone since 2006. The state has carried out 13 executions since 1976.
Only five people received death sentences in California in 2025, down from 42 in 1999.
That slowdown never emptied death row. Hundreds of people, most of them men of color, kept waiting under sentences the state would not carry out and would not lift.
Thursday ended that limbo for all of them at once.
Supporters Call It a Historic Step Toward Justice
Civil rights leaders praised the decision in strong terms on Thursday.
Anthony D. Romero of the American Civil Liberties Union called the commutations what justice demands and named the punishment racist and prone to error.
Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative called the move a historic step toward ending the death penalty in California.
Contra Costa District Attorney Diana Becton said the commutations will save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars over the long term.
Some victim families spoke in favor as well. Jess Nichol, whose sister Polly Klaas was killed in 1993, said an execution would do nothing for her recovery or for public safety.
The killer in that case is among those whose sentences will change.
Critics Say Juries and Voters Were Pushed Aside
The backlash arrived just as fast, and it was just as strong.
The California District Attorneys Association strongly condemned the decision. Its president, Jeannine M. Pacioni, said jurors and judges handed down the sentences after weeks of testimony.
Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman noted that California voters have twice rejected ballot measures to abolish the death penalty.
He said his office will keep weighing capital cases with care until the law itself changes.
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer called the move mercy for the wolves and cruelty to the sheep.
Steve Herr, whose son Sam was murdered in 2010, called the blanket commutation a cowardly way out and said the governor never contacted his family.
Those voices matter in this story. Every sentence on death row traces back to a family that buried someone.
A Nation Moving in Two Directions at Once
The timing sharpened the contrast. On the same day Newsom acted, Alabama, Florida and Indiana each carried out an execution.
Since January 2025, eleven states have put 79 people to death. It is the heaviest pace of executions in well over a decade.
Newsom leaves office in January. His moratorium alone could have been reversed by the next governor on day one.
A commutation is different. Once a sentence becomes life without parole, no future governor can turn it back into a death sentence.
That permanence is exactly what supporters celebrate and what critics resent.
For Black communities, the lesson travels far beyond California. The same racial patterns in capital sentencing show up in state after state, especially across the South.
What California just proved is that one governor with clemency power can act on that record without waiting on a legislature or a ballot measure.
Whether other governors follow is now an open question. So is whether the California Supreme Court moves quickly on the 382 cases in front of it.
Read more of our coverage of Black political power in our report on the historic midterm wins and our look at the road to the Speaker chair, and follow the closest Senate race in America in our Mississippi Senate coverage.
For now, 548 people who woke up Thursday under a sentence of death will serve life instead. In a system shaped for so long by race, that change is historic by any measure.
