Newsom Commutes Death Sentences of All 548 on California's Death Row
California Governor Gavin Newsom has commuted the death sentences of all 548 people on the state's death row, BBC News reported. The sentences were changed to life without the possibility of parole, meaning the prisoners cannot be released on parole, the process by which a board can free someone before the end of a sentence.
A commutation is a governor's power to reduce a sentence. Death row is the term for the prisoners who have been sentenced to be executed and are held awaiting that sentence. Under the change, none of the 548 will face execution.
California voters reinstated the death penalty in 1978. Since then, 13 inmates have been executed in the state. California has not carried out an execution since 2006, and historically it has had the largest death row population in the United States.
The state's executions have been on hold for years. In 2019, Newsom ordered a halt to the death penalty in California, a moratorium, or temporary suspension. At the time, Reuters reported that he granted reprieves, or delays of punishment, to all 737 inmates then on death row.
The latest decision applies to the prisoners who remained on death row at the time it was announced, and it changes their sentences rather than their convictions.
