Newsom Moves to Empty Death Row: 548 Sentences to Life Without Parole

Written By TNT Staff, Posted on November 6, 2026

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is using the last months of his term to do what voters have twice refused to do at the ballot box: end the death penalty in practice.

On Thursday he moved to commute all 548 death sentences in the state to life without the possibility of parole, according to his office’s fact sheet. Of those, 529 are men and 19 are women. Nobody is being released. Nobody is becoming parole-eligible. Convictions and restitution orders stay. The sentence simply stops being death.

That is clemency. It is also a soft-on-crime signal from a lame-duck Democrat widely floated for 2028, issued while cartels, fentanyl and violent crime still dominate the news outside Sacramento’s press room.

What the governor can do — and what he can’t

Newsom’s open letter calls state-sanctioned killing “incompatible with California’s values.” He imposed a moratorium in 2019, shut San Quentin’s execution chamber and has spent years converting death row into “Honor Dorms.” California’s last execution was Jan. 17, 2006. Forty-five people would face execution immediately if the moratorium ended, his fact sheet says.

The California Constitution lets a governor commute most death sentences alone. For inmates convicted of more than one felony, the Constitution requires a recommendation from at least four California Supreme Court justices. The San Francisco Standard reports Newsom asked the Court to weigh in on 382 of the cases and wants an answer by year-end so he can act before he leaves office. The Court has not ruled.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman noted the obvious: Californians have been asked twice to abolish the death penalty and kept it for the worst crimes. Only the Legislature or the voters can repeal it. Newsom is not repealing it. He is emptying it.

The system is broken. That is not an argument for forgetting victims.

Newsom is not inventing the dysfunction. His fact sheet says 376 people are still waiting for appointment or funding of state habeas counsel. Since Proposition 66 passed a decade ago promising faster review, only five people have been appointed counsel — with an average wait of 29 years. Two hundred twenty have waited 15 years or more; 139 have waited 20 years or more.

That is a scandal of process. Classical liberals can hate endless, unfunded capital appeals and still reject a governor wiping out the people’s chosen maximum penalty on his way out the door. Life without parole is severe. It is not what juries imposed in these cases, and it is not what voters reaffirmed.

Victim advocates are notifying survivors, the fact sheet says. That work matters. So does the message to every family who sat through a capital trial: your verdict lasts until a politician’s conscience does.

Clemency is a power. 2028 is a campaign.

Newsom writes that he “alone bear[s] responsibility.” Fine. Own it. Own it next to Xavier Becerra preparing to take the governorship, and next to a national party that just rode cost-of-living anger and anti-war sentiment to a congressional majority while California’s governor erases death row by memorandum.

A serious justice system fixes counsel appointments, funds habeas and carries out lawful sentences — or the people change the law. What it does not do is let a term-limited governor launder a ballot loss through the Supreme Court and call it conscience.

The Court should treat the 382-case dump as the constitutional check it is, not a rubber stamp. Californians kept the death penalty. Their governor is trying to retire it without them.

TNT Staff