Newsom moves to commute all 548 California death sentences
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he will commute every death sentence in the state to life without parole, a move that needs state Supreme Court approval in many cases and has drawn objections from prosecutors.
Developing story. Details may change as more information is confirmed.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Thursday that he is commuting all 548 death sentences in the state to life in prison without the possibility of parole, a step that would empty the largest death row in the country.
No one has been executed in California since 2006, and Newsom put a formal moratorium on executions in place in 2019. Thursday's action goes much further, turning every pending death sentence into a permanent prison term.
The move is not entirely in the governor's hands. Under California law, the governor needs the approval of the state Supreme Court before commuting the sentence of anyone convicted of more than one felony. That covers a large share of the people on death row, so hundreds of the commutations will go to the court, where at least four of the seven justices must sign off.
Prosecutors and victims' rights groups quickly criticized the decision. They said a blanket commutation ignores the facts of individual cases, the verdicts of juries and the wishes of victims' families, and some district attorneys said they were considering legal challenges.
Supporters of ending the death penalty have long argued that it is applied unevenly and risks executing innocent people, and that life without parole protects the public. California voters have twice narrowly rejected ballot measures to abolish capital punishment, in 2012 and 2016.
Details on how the court will handle the case are still to come. This is a developing story.
This summary is original reporting by tehworldnews, written after checking the facts against several major international news outlets and official statements.