Governor Gavin Newsom Grants Largest Mass Commutation in U.S. History to Death-Sentenced Prisoners in California

California Governor Gavin Newsom announced today, November 5, 2026, that he is commuting the death sentences of all 548 people on the state’s death row, granting the largest mass clemency in American history. In his statement announcing the decision, Gov. Newsom said, “I take this action because I firmly believe that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values, undermines the foundations of our legal system, and diminishes all of us.” Governor Newsom announced a moratorium on executions just two months into his first term as governor in 2019, calling the death penalty a “failure” and citing serious concerns about persistent racial discrimination, high costs, and the risk of human error. The decision was welcomed by a coalition of victims’ families, prosecutors, former corrections professionals, faith leaders, civil rights advocates, and business leaders who had urged Gov. Newsom to take this action.

“Governor Newsom’s announcement marks a decisive moment in the history of the death penalty in the United States. Though other governors have granted universal clemencies, none have been at this scale,” said Robin Maher, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center. “By bookending his time as governor first with a moratorium and now this mass clemency, Governor Newsom has irrevocably changed California’s relationship with the death penalty.”

California had not executed anyone in more than 20 years, but it maintained the nation’s largest death row population. In this single action, Gov. Newsom has reduced the U.S. death row population by nearly 30%. Approximately 1,388 people now remain under sentence of death throughout the country, the lowest number since 1984. California spent an estimated $6 billion on the death penalty since it was reinstated in 1978 and carried out just 13 executions during that time. Los Angeles County alone sentenced 319 people to death, about 174 of whom were still on death row at the time of Gov. Newsom’s announcement. Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and Riverside Counties account for 50% of California’s death row and together have sentenced more people to death than any state outside California.

In a statement, Jess Nichol, sister of Polly Klaas, who was murdered by one of the people granted clemency, said, “I won’t pretend I’ve always opposed the death penalty. I used to think the man who killed my sister deserved execution. But over time I’ve realized that whether he’s executed has absolutely nothing to do with my recovery or with real public safety. The system tells survivors that execution matters to our healing. It doesn’t. It’s a distraction from what we actually need.” Days before Gov. Newsom granted clemency, 50 murder victims’ family members signed on to a letter urging him to grant universal clemency.

Of the people currently on California’s death row, about 33% are Black, 32% are white, 29% are Latino/a, 4% are Asian, and 1% are Native American. Eight people have been exonerated from death row in California, all of them men of color. 

According to a May 2026 report by the Habeas Corpus Resource Center, 70% of the state’s death row are awaiting appointment of counsel to appeal their death sentences due to a dearth of available funding and qualified counsel. Two-thirds of the people under sentence of death in California were sentenced more than 20 years ago. 

Because California’s death penalty was implemented by a ballot referendum, it can only be repealed by a ballot referendum. In 2012 and 2016, voters narrowly rejected referenda that would have abolished capital punishment. In 2016, a voter referendum intended to speed up executions by limiting appeals passed by a two-percentage point margin. That measure, Proposition 66, was upheld but curtailed by a 2017 California Supreme Court decision, and has not resulted in any executions, nor in noticeable improvements in the speed with which appeals are considered. 

California law requires the state Supreme Court to review clemency for anyone with multiple felony convictions. Governor Newsom’s clemency grant will apply immediately to about one-third of death row prisoners, but the remaining two-thirds will be reviewed by the court before the commutations are final. 

This marks the seventh time in the modern era of the death penalty that a governor has granted clemency to all death-sentenced people in their state. Three other governors and President Joe Biden issued broad grants of clemency but did not apply them to everyone on death row. By granting clemency to 548 people, Governor Newsom has more than doubled the total number of clemencies granted in capital cases in the last 50 years.