AmericaCalifornia GovernorNewsom (Gavin Newsom) said today that he will bring all of Californiadeath penalty The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, a measure that would affect 548 death row inmates.
“I have decided to exercise my constitutional right of clemency and commute all death sentences in California to life in prison without parole,” he wrote in a letter to “all Californians,” reports AFP.
California, the most populous state in the United States, has not carried out an execution for 20 years, but courts continue to sentence people convicted of murder and other serious crimes to death.
Newsom said, “Today’s decision is the result of my nearly 30 years as an elected official, where I have always publicly opposed executions by state governments.” Newsom will leave the governorship in a few months and is widely expected to compete for the White House in 2028.
He said, “Today, I am taking action based on a long-held and strongly held belief that our society is stronger, both as individuals and as a society, when we reject state-sanctioned murder.”
