California Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to convert all 548 of the state’s death sentences to life in prison without parole, but the announcement is not a completed grant of clemency. Hundreds of the proposed commutations require a recommendation from the California Supreme Court before the governor can act.

The Democratic governor announced his decision Thursday, Nov. 5, as he prepares to leave office in January. The Habeas Corpus Resource Center, a state agency representing people sentenced to death, says he has not yet formally commuted any sentences. The governor’s clemency website likewise says the changes will not take effect until the necessary legal steps are completed.

The announcement has drawn objections from prosecutors and victims’ families, support from opponents of capital punishment and preparations for a possible legal challenge.

What Newsom has proposed

“I know we cannot execute people in our imperfect legal system and remain true to our core values, first among them justice and human decency,” Newsom wrote in an open letter to Californians.

“This decision is among the most difficult of my career, not because I doubt its necessity for our state but because I know its announcement may surface excruciating memories for victims’ families,” he wrote. “I hold this painful truth along with the belief that this is a righteous action.”

The same sentence change would apply to everyone currently under a death judgment. The governor’s fact sheet says the action would not release anyone, make anyone eligible for parole, pardon them, alter their underlying convictions or erase restitution orders.

Newsom said he had consulted survivors and victims’ families, public safety experts, community leaders, prison officials and jurors. He said he decided against excluding people convicted of the “worst of the worst” crimes because families experience each loss that way.

The Death Penalty Information Center described the proposed action as the largest act of mass clemency in U.S. history.

Why the Supreme Court has a role

Newsom can commute the sentences of approximately 166 people without a Supreme Court recommendation. For the other 382, a separate felony conviction triggers an additional constitutional requirement.

Article V, Section 8 of the California Constitution requires a Supreme Court recommendation, with four justices concurring, before a governor may pardon or commute the sentence of someone twice convicted of a felony. The court has seven seats.

The governor’s explanatory statement asks for that recommendation for the 382 people. His office says staff reviewed criminal history records to identify those with more than one felony conviction, whether before or after the death sentence was imposed.

The Habeas Corpus Resource Center says the court’s role is a check on potential abuses of executive power. Even after a favorable recommendation, Newsom would still have to issue commutation certificates to change the sentences.

The center also explains why its count of 548 is lower than the corrections department’s: department records can still classify people as condemned after their death judgments have been reversed, and resentencing information takes time to reach the agency.

Prosecutors and families respond

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman acknowledged the governor’s clemency authority but emphasized its limits. “That power does not extend to eliminating the death penalty. Only the Legislature or the voters can do that,” he said Thursday. His office will continue evaluating eligible cases under existing law, he said.

Anne Marie Schubert, a former Sacramento County district attorney who heads the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, said the organization was considering a legal challenge. She argued that Supreme Court reviews should be individualized.

“These are families that have suffered the most unimaginable losses,” she said. “So from a victim perspective, it is devastating to families.”

In reporting published Saturday, CalMatters quoted Sandy Friend, whose 8-year-old son Michael Lyons was murdered, describing her reaction in Friday text messages: “I feel a deep, soul-hurting pain and an angry, screaming feeling inside.”

Other relatives reacted differently. LaVerne Brison, whose sister Cynthia Annette Johnson was murdered, told CalMatters she bore Newsom no ill will and had never expected the killer to be executed in her lifetime. “I don’t put the blame on (Newsom),” she said.

A moratorium is not abolition

Newsom imposed an execution moratorium in March 2019, and San Quentin’s execution chamber was dismantled under his administration. California has executed 13 people since reinstating capital punishment in 1978, according to state corrections records. The last execution was Clarence Ray Allen’s on Jan. 17, 2006.

Death sentences remain available in future cases. Commuting existing sentences would not repeal the state’s capital punishment law.

Natasha Minsker, an attorney and consultant to anti-death-penalty organizations, welcomed the proposal. “We are propping up the death penalty for the entire world,” she said. “And it’s time for California to be out of the business of endorsing the death penalties.”

The decision also puts the country’s largest death row into the national political debate. Newsom is widely expected to seek the presidency in 2028.

The deadline Newsom has requested

In his letter to the Supreme Court, Newsom requested a recommendation “by the end of this year so that I may act before the end of my term.” That is the governor’s requested timetable, not an announced court deadline. His term ends in January.