California Governor Gavin Newsom has commuted the death sentences of all 548 people on the state’s death row, converting them to life in prison without the possibility of parole in what experts describe as the largest single act of mass clemency in American history.
Newsom announced the decision on Thursday, November 5, 2026, in an open letter to Californians, two days after the midterm elections and about two months before he leaves office.
“I take this action because I firmly believe that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values, undermines the foundations of our legal system and diminishes each of us,” Newsom wrote.
The move empties the largest death row in the Western Hemisphere. Once complete, it will cut the number of people under sentence of death across the United States by nearly a third, to about 1,388 — the lowest figure since 1984.
What Newsom announced
The commutations cover all 548 people currently under sentence of death in California — 529 men and 19 women. Each sentence will become life in prison without the possibility of parole. Nobody is being freed, and nobody’s conviction is being overturned. The punishment changes; the prison term does not end.
Newsom was careful to say what the decision does not do. It does not repeal the death penalty in California. Capital punishment was enacted by voters, and only voters or the legislature can abolish it — voters declined to do so in 2012. “The power to repeal the death penalty rests with the Legislature and voters,” Newsom wrote. “The discretion to seek, impose and uphold death sentences in individual cases remains, as ever, in the hands of prosecutors, juries and courts.”
The governor has long opposed capital punishment. Shortly after taking office in 2019, he signed an executive order placing a moratorium on executions. Thursday’s announcement goes further: a moratorium can be lifted by a future governor, but a commutation, once granted, cannot be undone.
Newsom is the eighth governor in the modern era to commute every death sentence in his state.
Why the commutations will not all happen at once
Not every commutation takes effect immediately. Under the California Constitution, a governor cannot grant clemency to a person twice convicted of a felony without the recommendation of the state Supreme Court, with four of its seven justices concurring. That requirement covers 382 of the 548 prisoners — roughly 70 per cent of them.
Newsom submitted those cases to the court on Thursday and has asked it to issue its recommendation by the end of the year, so that he can act before his term ends in January. The remaining 166 commutations take effect on his authority alone.
The governor also gave official notice of the decision to victims’ family members and district attorneys. After 10 days, he will commute about a third of the sentences on his own authority, while the rest wait on the court.
In his letter, Newsom acknowledged the unusual process his decision forces. “My decision to commute all death sentences therefore compels the involvement of the chief justice and associate justices in a unique inter-branch constitutional process,” he wrote.
A death row that had already stopped executing
California has not carried out an execution since January 17, 2006, when Clarence Ray Allen was put to death by lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison. Only 13 people have been executed in the state since 1976.
Capital punishment has been slowing for years. Only five people received death sentences in California in 2025, down from 42 in 1999. A May 2026 report by the Habeas Corpus Resource Center found that 70 per cent of California’s death row prisoners were still waiting for a lawyer to be appointed to handle their appeals.
The racial pattern is stark. As of April 2026, 68 per cent of the people under sentence of death in California were defendants of colour, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
That is the core of Newsom’s argument: the state’s death penalty is unjust, error-prone and incompatible with the state’s values. Supporters point to the decades people spend waiting — often more than 20 years — and to the cost of a system that produces almost no executions.
The people on death row
The 548 include some of the most notorious names in American crime. Randy Kraft, known as the “Southern California Strangler”, is on death row. So is Charles Ng, convicted of killing 11 people in California in the 1980s. So is Richard Allen Davis, who kidnapped and killed 12-year-old Polly Klaas in 1993.
Those names are why the decision is so politically charged — and why the reaction from victims’ families and prosecutors has been swift and furious. For the families of victims, a death sentence was the punishment a jury chose, and they see commutation as the state breaking a promise.
Newsom’s answer is that the commutations do not free anyone. Kraft, Ng, Davis and the other 545 prisoners will spend the rest of their lives in prison, with no possibility of parole. The question, as the governor frames it, is not whether they are punished, but how the state punishes them.
The reaction: praise and fury
The response split along familiar lines, but the scale of the decision made it louder than most.
Supporters called it historic. The Equal Justice Initiative described the governor’s action as “momentous” and noted that California’s commutations cover about a quarter of all death sentences nationwide. The Death Penalty Information Center called it the largest mass clemency in United States history. The Marshall Project noted that once the commutations are final, the national death row population will fall to about 1,388 people — the lowest since 1984.
Critics were equally swift. District attorneys, law enforcement groups and advocates for homicide victims condemned the move, arguing that it overrides the verdicts of juries and the wishes of victims’ families.
The contrast with Florida was immediate. Florida had the second-largest death row in the country, with 235 people as of November 5, and Governor Ron DeSantis has been pushing to carry out executions — Florida was set to execute Jesse Guardado on Thursday for the 2004 murder of 75-year-old community activist Jackie Malone. With California’s death row emptied, Florida is poised to hold the largest condemned population in the country.
The politics of a final act
The timing is no accident. Newsom announced the commutations two days after the midterm elections in which Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress, and about two months before he leaves office. He is term-limited and steps down on January 4, 2027, when Xavier Becerra — elected governor on November 3 — takes over.
That makes the decision a defining final act, and a legacy play. Newsom is reported to be considering a run for president in 2028, and the commutations will be one of the first lines of his record in that race — either as proof of conviction or as a political liability, depending on who is judging.
It also fits the wider moment in American politics. With President Donald Trump now a lame-duck president facing a hostile Democratic Congress, attention in both parties is already shifting to 2028. Governors with national ambitions are staking out positions now, and few positions are as clear — or as divisive — as the death penalty.
Whether the commutations help or hurt Newsom in a Democratic primary is an open question. Primary voters are far more sceptical of capital punishment than the general public, but the names on California’s death row — Kraft, Ng, Davis — are the kind opponents will use in attack advertisements.
What happens next
Three things will decide how this story ends.
First, the California Supreme Court. Newsom has asked the court to rule on the 382 cases that need its recommendation by the end of the year. Four of the seven justices must concur in each case. If the court moves quickly, the commutations can be completed before Newsom leaves office. If it moves slowly, the decision could pass to his successor — and the politics of that handover are uncertain.
Second, the courts. Victims’ families and prosecutors may challenge the commutations, and the 10-day notice period gives them time to prepare. The constitutional process Newsom invoked has rarely been tested at this scale.
Third, the national picture. If the commutations are completed, the United States will have about 1,388 people on death row, the lowest number since 1984. Florida will hold the largest death row in the country. And the debate over capital punishment — in statehouses, in Congress and in the 2028 presidential race — will have a new and vivid example at its centre.
The bottom line
Gavin Newsom has done what no California governor has done before: emptied the largest death row in the Western Hemisphere with a single decision. The commutations are historic, they are contested, and they are not yet complete. What happens in the California Supreme Court over the next two months will decide whether the largest mass clemency in American history becomes final before Newsom leaves office — or becomes the first fight of the governor who replaces him.
Sources: USA Today – Newsom commutes California death sentences for 548 people; Equal Justice Initiative – Gov. Newsom Commutes All California Death Sentences. Related reading: the midterm results and the lame-duck presidency.