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State & Federal

California

Timeline

1977 – State Legislature over­rides Governor Jerry Brown’s veto and rein­states the death penal­ty, allow­ing for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in first degree mur­ders with any of 12 special circumstances.

1978 – California vot­ers pass the Briggs Initiative which cre­ates California’s cur­rent death penal­ty statute, adding 16 more spe­cial cir­cum­stances, for a total of 28 death-eligible crimes.

1990 – Voters pass two addi­tion­al ini­tia­tives, adding 5 more spe­cial cir­cum­stances, for a total of 33 death-eligible crimes.

1996 – Voters pass two ini­tia­tives that add 3 addi­tion­al spe­cial cir­cum­stances, bring­ing the total to 36 death-eligible crimes.

2000 – Two vot­er ini­tia­tives add anoth­er 3 spe­cial cir­cum­stances to California’s death penal­ty law, for a total of 39 death-eligible crimes.

2012 – Proposition 34 was on the bal­lot, which would have repealed the death penal­ty and replaced it with life in prison. The propo­si­tion failed, but received 48% sup­port from voters.

2016 – Proposition 62 was on the bal­lot, which would have replaced the death penal­ty with a strict life sen­tence in prison. In response, death-penal­ty pro­po­nents pre­sent­ed a counter-propo­si­tion, Proposition 66, which sought to retain the death penal­ty and expe­dite state cap­i­tal appeals by chang­ing the way in which appeals are processed. Proposition 62 failed, but received 46% sup­port from vot­ers. Proposition 66 passed with 51% sup­port from voters.

2017 – The Supreme Court of California upheld the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Proposition 66 but severe­ly lim­it­ed the scope of its core pro­vi­sions. In Briggs v. Brown, the court sus­tained por­tions of the mea­sure that shift­ed which court will hear cap­i­tal cas­es, increased the pool of death-penal­ty appeal lawyers by requir­ing lawyers who accept oth­er appel­late appoint­ments to also take cap­i­tal cas­es, elim­i­nat­ed pub­lic review of exe­cu­tion meth­ods, and lim­it­ed both the issues that can be raised in cap­i­tal habeas appeals and the time courts have to decide them. However, the major­i­ty ruled that the measure’s flag­ship pro­vi­sion — a five-year dead­line on appeals by con­demned pris­on­ers — was ​“direc­tive, rather than manda­to­ry”; that ​“courts must make indi­vid­u­al­ized deci­sions based on the cir­cum­stances of each case”; and that ​“pris­on­ers may seek to chal­lenge [the time lim­i­ta­tions and lim­i­ta­tion on the claims they are per­mit­ted to raise] in the con­text of their individual cases.”

2019 — On March 13, 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom signed an exec­u­tive order plac­ing a mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty in California. ​“The inten­tion­al killing of anoth­er per­son is wrong and as Governor, I will not over­see the exe­cu­tion of any indi­vid­ual,” said Governor Newsom. ​“Our death penal­ty sys­tem has been, by all mea­sures, a fail­ure. It has dis­crim­i­nat­ed against defen­dants who are men­tal­ly ill, black and brown, or can’t afford expen­sive legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion. It has pro­vid­ed no pub­lic safe­ty ben­e­fit or val­ue as a deter­rent. It has wast­ed bil­lions of tax­pay­er dol­lars. Most of all, the death penal­ty is absolute. It’s irre­versible and irrepara­ble in the event of human error.” At the time, there were 737 pris­on­ers on California’s death row. The mora­to­ri­um remains in place as of October 3, 2023.

2020 — COVID-19 kills more California death row pris­on­ers than the state has exe­cut­ed in 27 years.

2022 — Governor Gavin Newsom signs The Racial Justice Act for All bill into law, which pro­vides a process for death-row pris­on­ers to receive relief from con­vic­tions or death sen­tences obtained ​“on the basis of race, eth­nic­i­ty, or nation­al ori­gin,” and AB2657, which removes those who are per­ma­nent­ly men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent from death row.

2023 — Governor Gavin Newsom moves for­ward with efforts to dis­man­tle San Quentin’s death row by inte­grat­ing inmates from death row into gen­er­al prison pop­u­la­tions through­out the state.

Famous Cases

Manuel Babbitt was a Vietnam War Veteran who was exe­cut­ed in 1999 for mur­der­ing an elder­ly Sacramento woman. Babbitt served two com­bat tours in Vietnam and, while on death row, received the Purple Heart for wounds he received dur­ing the Battle of Khe Sanh. After the war, Babbitt was diag­nosed with a post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der and para­noid schiz­o­phre­nia. He soon became home­less. In 1980, he broke into the home of 78-year-old Leah Schendel, assault­ed her and stole some food as well as some of her belong­ings. Schendel died of a heart attack. He laid a mat­tress over her and toe tagged her. Babbitt said that he was hav­ing a Vietnam War flash­back. During the sen­tenc­ing phase of the tri­al, James Schenk, Babbitt’s defense lawyer, did not intro­duce any evi­dence of Babbitt’s men­tal ill­ness to the jury, prompt­ing him to lat­er say that he ​“failed com­plete­ly” dur­ing this cru­cial phase of the tri­al. Before his exe­cu­tion, Babbitt refused his last meal and asked for the allot­ted mon­ey to be donat­ed to a home­less Vietnam Veteran. Prison offi­cials refused his request. (E. Nieves, ​“Vietnam Veteran Executed for 1980 Murder.” The New York Times, May 5, 1999.)

In the ear­ly 1970s, Stanley Williams co-found­ed the Crips, a vio­lent street gang from Los Angeles. Williams was sen­tenced to death in 1981 for the mur­ders of four peo­ple that took place dur­ing a rob­bery spree in 1979. While he admit­ted that he had com­mit­ted many bru­tal acts while he was involved in the Crips, Williams always main­tained his inno­cence with regards to the mur­ders for which he was sen­tenced to death. In 1996, Williams co-authored ​“Gangs and Wanting to Belong,” the first in a series of anti-gang children’s books. He lat­er went on to write ​“Life in Prison” and ​“Blue Rage, Black Redemption”. For his anti-gang youth out­reach, Williams was nom­i­nat­ed for the Nobel Peace Prize a total of six times. Many notable lead­ers, includ­ing Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Rigoberta Menchu, asked the Governor to spare William’s life. But then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger refused to grant clemen­cy and Williams was exe­cut­ed by lethal injec­tion at San Quentin State Prison on December 13, 2005. (“Timeline: Tookie’s Path to Death Row.” NPR News, December 13, 2005.)

Thomas Thompson was exe­cut­ed in 1998 for the rape and mur­der of Ginger Fleischli despite sub­stan­tial evi­dence that he was inno­cent and that some­one else had com­mit­ted the mur­der. In 1981, Thompson and Fleischli spent a night drink­ing togeth­er in Long Beach. Thompson claimed that he and Fleischli had con­sen­su­al sex before going to sleep and that she had dis­ap­peared by the time he awoke the next morn­ing. When Fleischli’s body was dis­cov­ered, a foot­print near her grave was linked to Thompson’s room­mate and Fleischli’s ex-boyfriend: David Leitch. Leitch had a his­to­ry of vio­lence and had threat­ened Fleischli just two weeks before her dis­ap­pear­ance. Despite this evi­dence and cloth fibers from Fleischli’s cloth­ing that were dis­cov­ered in the trunk of Leitch’s car, Leitch and Thompson were both arrest­ed and charged with the mur­der. They were tried sep­a­rate­ly, Thompson first. The pros­e­cu­tion pro­ceed­ed on a the­o­ry that Thompson had raped and then killed Fleischli to cov­er up the rape, and that Leitch’s involve­ment was lim­it­ed to help­ing dis­pose of the body. (A rape-mur­der spe­cial cir­cum­stance alle­ga­tion ren­dered Thompson eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty). The pros­e­cu­tor relied heav­i­ly on two jail­house infor­mants, one of whom was Edward Fink, who tes­ti­fied that Thompson said he raped the vic­tim and then killed her to pre­vent her from report­ing the rape. Leitch was tried by the same pros­e­cu­tor. The prosecution’s the­o­ry at Leitch’s tri­al was that Leitch was a vio­lent drug abuser who had the sole motive to com­mit the mur­der. Leitch was found guilty of 2nd-degree mur­der and sen­tenced to 15 years to life. Thompson’s case was over­turned twice on appeals, with a con­ser­v­a­tive US District Judge say­ing that the case left him with an ​“unset­tling feel­ing.” After this deci­sion was reversed, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals again over­turned the death sen­tence, stat­ing that there was doubt over Thompson’s guilt. Eventually, the US Supreme Court over­turned this deci­sion on a tech­ni­cal­i­ty, and Thompson was exe­cut­ed. (E. Bailey, E. Schrader, and T. Hua, ​“Killer put to Death by Injection at San Quentin.” The Los Angeles Times, July 14, 1998.)

Notable Exonerations

In ear­ly 1941, Fred Rogers​’s moth­er com­mit­ted sui­cide by inhal­ing chlo­ro­form. Nine months lat­er his griev­ing father died of smoke inhala­tion after delib­er­ate­ly set­ting his house on fire. Police, sus­pi­cious of the two deaths, arrest­ed Fred Rogers for mur­der. During the inter­ro­ga­tion, the inter­view­ers told Rogers that they had enough evi­dence to send him to the gas cham­ber, but he would spare his life if he con­fessed. Rogers quick­ly con­fessed to the two mur­ders. At tri­al how­ev­er, Rogers recant­ed his con­fes­sion, but was even­tu­al­ly found guilty and sen­tenced to death. When the California Supreme Court reviewed the case in 1943, they not­ed the lack of sub­stan­tial evi­dence against Rogers as well as the ques­tion­able police meth­ods used to elic­it the con­fes­sion, and the con­vic­tion was over­turned. When Rogers was retried, the court dis­missed all charges and released him.

Paul Imbler was sen­tenced to death for the 1961 mur­der of a store own­er in Los Angeles. The owner’s wife – who had wit­nessed the mur­der – picked Imbler’s face out of a col­lec­tion of police pho­tographs. Additionally, a wit­ness named Alfred Costello claimed to have chased Imbler after the attack, recov­er­ing his coat and firearm in an alley. After Imbler was sen­tenced to death, inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tors dis­cov­ered that Costello, an ex-con and men­tal patient who was also run­ning an ille­gal book­mak­ing oper­a­tion out of the victim’s store, had pro­duced unre­li­able tes­ti­mo­ny in court. Furthermore, the firearm dis­cov­ered in the alley was nev­er con­clu­sive­ly linked to Imbler. With this new infor­ma­tion, the California Courts admit­ted that he had been con­vict­ed in error, and released him ten years after he was arrested.

Vicente Benavides Figueroa, wrong­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1993 on charges that he had raped, anal­ly sodom­ized, and mur­dered his girlfriend’s 21-month-old daugh­ter, was exon­er­at­ed on April 19, 2018. A tri­al court in Kern County, California for­mal­ly dis­missed all charges against Benavides, a Mexican nation­al, two days after Kern District Attorney Lisa Green said her office would not be seek­ing a retri­al. The California Supreme Court had grant­ed the for­mer farm­work­er a new tri­al in March 2018, call­ing his con­vic­tions for sex­u­al­ly assault­ing and mur­der­ing Consuelo Verdugo a prod­uct of ​“exten­sive,” ​“per­va­sive,” ​“impact­ful,” and ​“false” foren­sic tes­ti­mo­ny. The girl, the court said, had nev­er been sex­u­al­ly assault­ed and may actu­al­ly have died from being hit by a car.

Notable Commutations and Clemencies

William Lindley was sen­tenced to death for the 1943 mur­der of a 13 year-old girl. The red­head­ed Lindley was an illit­er­ate and men­tal­ly ill itin­er­ant farmer from Central California. During the inves­ti­ga­tion, police relied on tes­ti­mo­ny from a shep­herd who wit­nessed the attack, claim­ing that the attack­er was a red­head. Furthermore, the lit­tle girl her­self described the attack­er as a red­head before she died. Finally, a jail­house infor­mant claimed that Lindley con­fessed to the mur­der. After the jury sen­tenced Lindley to death, Al Matthews, an attor­ney from Los Angeles, began inde­pen­dent­ly inves­ti­gat­ing the case. Matthews dis­cov­ered that the shep­herd who wit­nessed the attack was col­or­blind, and thus unable to know whether or not the attack­er was indeed a red­head. Matthews also dis­cov­ered that anoth­er red­head­ed farmer had been in the vicin­i­ty dur­ing the crime, and had been not­ed to have mys­te­ri­ous scratch­es on his face after the attack. Further, wit­ness­es came for­ward claim­ing that this farmer had repeat­ed­ly con­fessed to the mur­der. Even with this new infor­ma­tion, the California Supreme Court did not imme­di­ate­ly over­turn the sen­tence. In January 1946, Lindley came with­in hours of being exe­cut­ed before a tem­po­rary reprieve came. In July of that year, he came with­in two days of being exe­cut­ed before anoth­er reprieve came. In October, he won a third reprieve a week before his sched­uled exe­cu­tion. It was not until 1947 that Governor Earl Warren com­mut­ed Lindley’s sen­tence to life imprisonment.

In 1967, Governor Ronald Reagan com­mut­ed Calvin Thomas​’s sen­tence from death to life impris­on­ment after it was dis­cov­ered that Thomas suf­fered from organ­ic brain dam­age. Thomas had been con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing a three year-old boy. Thomas’s brain dam­age was dis­cov­ered after the tri­al. To date, this is the last time a California gov­er­nor has com­mut­ed a death sen­tence. (H. Chiang, ​“No Clemency if History is a Precedent.” San Francisco Chronicle, April 26, 1999.)

Milestones in Abolition and Reinstatement

1872 – Capital pun­ish­ment autho­rized in state Penal Code

1972 – California Supreme Court declares death penal­ty uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. 107 con­demned pris­on­ers resen­tenced. California vot­ers pass Proposition 17, an ini­tia­tive that amends the California Constitution to pro­vide that the death penal­ty is not cru­el or unusual punishment.

Other Interesting Facts

California’s death row is the largest in the coun­try with more than 665 con­demned pris­on­ers (as of January 1, 2023 DRUSA). During the 2016 cam­paign on Propositions 62 and 66, the Yes on 62 (death penal­ty abo­li­tion) cam­paign made the dra­mat­ic asser­tion that ​“California is home to the largest death row pop­u­la­tion in the Western Hemisphere.” PolitiFact California fact-checked the claim and rat­ed it as accu­rate. C. Nichols, ​“Truth be told: California has ​‘largest death row in Western Hemisphere’,” KPCC, Capitol Public Radio, August 12, 2016.

Yosemite Falls, Yosemite National Park. Photo by Maggie Louden.

Resources

DPIC RESOURCES: Analysis and Fact-Check of 2016 California Referenda. California had two death penal­ty ini­tia­tives on the bal­lot in November 2016, one that sought to repeal the death penal­ty (Proposition 62) and one that sought to lim­it state court judi­cial review of death penal­ty appeals (Proposition 66). As Californians pre­pared to vote on the ref­er­en­da, DPIC cre­at­ed a web page to offer fact-check­ing and con­text. Our page pre­sent­ed the offi­cial argu­ments that each cam­paign wrote for the California Voter Guide, with state­ments high­light­ed as ver­i­fied, mis­lead­ing, or mixed, with links to rel­e­vant back­ground infor­ma­tion. In addi­tion, it pro­vid­ed detailed expla­na­tions on issues of race, inno­cence, and costs to fur­ther edu­cate vot­ers about the poten­tial impacts of abol­ish­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment (Prop. 62) or cur­tail­ing the appeals process (Prop. 66).

  • Death Penalty Focus
  • ACLU of Northern California – Death Penalty Project
  • California Crime Victims for Alternatives for the Death Penalty
  • California People of Faith Working Against the Death Penalty
  • SAFE California — sup­port­ing a bal­lot ini­tia­tive to replace California’s death penal­ty with life impris­on­ment without parole
  • Department of Corrections
  • Prosecutors
  • Public defend­er’s office
  • Victims’ ser­vices
  • California Cost Study 2011 - DPIC sum­ma­ry of ​“A roadmap to mend or end the California leg­is­la­ture’s mul­ti-bil­lion dol­lar death penal­ty deba­cle” from Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review by Judge Arthur L. Alarcon & Paula M. Mitchell.

California Execution Totals Since 1976


News & Developments


News

May 06, 2025

New DPI Data Analysis: How Race Affects Capital Charging and Sentencing of 18 to 20-Year-Olds

In com­mem­o­ra­tion of the 20th anniver­sary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s land­mark deci­sion end­ing the juve­nile death penal­ty, the Death Penalty Information Center (DPI) has released a new report: Immature Minds in a​“Maturing Society”: Roper v. Simmons at 20, detail­ing the grow­ing sup­port for the idea that indi­vid­u­als ages 18, 19, and 20 should receive the same age-appro­pri­ate con­sid­er­a­tions that juve­niles now receive in death penal­ty cas­es. The report also reveals…

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News

Mar 28, 2025

“He Looks a Little Like the Defendant”: A Closer Look at the History of Racial Bias in Jury Selection

As clos­ing argu­ments of his tri­al began in Johnston County, North Carolina, Hasson Bacote watched as Assistant District Attorney Gregory Butler urged the jury to sen­tence him to death. Mr. Bacote, a Black man, had been con­vict­ed of fatal­ly shoot­ing 18-year-old Anthony Surles dur­ing a rob­bery when Mr. Bacote was just 21 years old. Mr. Bacote admit­ted he had fired a sin­gle shot out of a trail­er, but said he did not know that he hit any­one.​“Hasson Bacote is a thug: cold-blooded…

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News

Feb 27, 2025

New Podcast: The Past, Present, and Future of the California Racial Justice Act

In the February 2025 episode of 12:01: The Death Penalty in Context, DPI Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with three experts on California’s Racial Justice Act (RJA). Natasha Minsker, an attor­ney and con­sul­tant, for­mer­ly of the ACLU, speaks on the his­to­ry of the RJA and the impe­tus for its pas­sage. Genevie Gold, research and writ­ing fel­low at the Office of the State Public Defender (OSPD), describes the process that an RJA claim fol­lows through the legal sys­tem, and…

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News

Feb 11, 2025

State Spotlight: California Death Row Shrinks Sharply in 2024, Driven by the Resentencing of At Least 45 People to Life Sentences or Less

When California Governor Gavin Newsom announced a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in 2019, he said that the state’s​“death penal­ty sys­tem has been, by all mea­sures, a fail­ure.” He explained that the death penal­ty​“has dis­crim­i­nat­ed against defen­dants who are men­tal­ly ill, Black and brown, or can’t afford expen­sive legal representation…[while pro­vid­ing] no pub­lic safe­ty ben­e­fit or val­ue as a deter­rent.” In 2024, California courts agreed that exe­cu­tion was not the…

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News

Feb 05, 2025

Focus on Race: Alameda County Resentencings Illustrate Long History of Excluding Jurors of Color from the Jury Box

When Ernest Dykes was brought to tri­al on death penal­ty charges in Alameda County, California in the mid-1990s, it was rea­son­ably expect­ed that pros­e­cu­tors and defense attor­neys alike would work hard to shape the jury to their ben­e­fit. What Mr. Dykes (who is Black) didn’t know until recent­ly, how­ev­er, was just how far the pros­e­cu­tion would go to curate…

Read More
View More

View Information by State

Additional Information


  • Death Penalty: Yes
  • Number of Executions Since 1976: 13
  • Number of Executions Before 1976 (may include fed­er­al and military executions): 725
  • Current Death Row Population: 591
  • Women on Death Row: 18
  • Number of Innocent People Freed from Death Row: 8
  • Number of Clemencies Granted: 0
  • Date of Reinstatement (fol­low­ing Furman v. Georgia): 12/​31/​1973
  • First Execution After Reinstatement: 1992
  • Location of Death Row/​Executions: Men: San Quentin State Prison, San Quentin, CA Women: Central California Women’s Facility, Chowchilla, CA
  • Capital: Sacramento
  • Region: West
  • Population: 39,538,223*
  • Murder Rate (per 100,000 population): 4.28
  • Is Life Without Parole an Option: Yes
  • Can a defen­dant get death for a felony in which s/​he was not respon­si­ble for the murder: Yes
  • Method of Execution: Choice of Injection or Gas
  • How is Sentence Determined: Jury
  • Clemency Process: Governor has sole author­i­ty to grant clemen­cy, unless inmate has a prior felony
  • Governor: Gavin Newsom

Execution Pause Details

On March 13, 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom signed an exec­u­tive order plac­ing a mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty in California. ​“The inten­tion­al killing of anoth­er per­son is wrong and as Governor, I will not over­see the exe­cu­tion of any indi­vid­ual,” said Governor Newsom. ​“Our death penal­ty sys­tem has been, by all mea­sures, a fail­ure. It has dis­crim­i­nat­ed against defen­dants who are men­tal­ly ill, black and brown, or can’t afford expen­sive legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion. It has pro­vid­ed no pub­lic safe­ty ben­e­fit or val­ue as a deter­rent. It has wast­ed bil­lions of tax­pay­er dol­lars. Most of all, the death penal­ty is absolute. It’s irre­versible and irrepara­ble in the event of human error.” At the time, there were 737 pris­on­ers on California’s death row. The mora­to­ri­um remains in place as of October 3, 2023.

Upcoming Executions

Upcoming Executions

Information about scheduled executions around the country

Innocence

Innocence

For every 8.2 peo­ple exe­cut­ed in the Unit­ed States in the mod­ern era of the death penal­ty, one per­son on death row has been exon­er­at­ed.

State-By-State

State-By-State

States With and Without the Death Penalty

DPI Fact Sheet

DPI Fact Sheet

PDF handout with facts about the Death Penalty

More Information


Innocence Database

Execution Database

Death Penalty Census Database

Death Penalty Information Center
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