Six Ex-Governors Urge Gov. Jerry Brown to Clear California’s Death Row

Six former governors have urged California Governor Jerry Brown (pictured) to “be courageous in leadership” and grant clemency to the 740 men and women on California’s death row before he leaves office on January 7, 2019. In a December 13 op-ed in the New York Times, the former governors—Ohio’s Richard Celeste, Oregon’s John Kitzhaber, Maryland’s Martin O’Malley, New Mexico’s Bill Richardson and Toney Anaya, and Illinois’s Pat Quinn—wrote that “Mr. Brown has the power to commute the sentences of 740 men and women, to save 740 lives. … Such an act will take political will and moral clarity, both of which Mr. Brown has demonstrated in the past. In the interest of his legacy, the people of California need his leadership one more time before he leaves office.”

The governors called signing a death warrant “a terrible responsibility, hard even to imagine until you’re asked to carry it out, as we were. But we became convinced that it wasn’t something a civilized society should ask of its leaders. That’s why we halted executions in our states, and we call on Gov. Jerry Brown of California to do the same.” Each of the former governors granted clemency to at least one death-row prisoner during their tenures in office, and Anaya, O’Malley, and Quinn commuted the death sentences of all the prisoners on their states’ death rows. The ex-governors said, “we know it must weigh on Mr. Brown that, unless he acts soon, he will leave behind 740 men and women on California’s death row. It’s a staggering number and our hearts go out to him. From a humanitarian perspective, it is horrifying to imagine executing that many humans. As a practical matter, it’s beyond comprehension. … If the state were to execute a single person every day, people would still be waiting on death row after two years.”

In late November, three former Ohio governors, Richard Celeste, Bob Taft, and Ted Strickland gave a joint interview to the Columbus Dispatch in which each told the paper that the toughest burden he had to bear as governor was deciding whether a condemned prisoner should live or die. Celeste commuted the death sentences of eight prisoners—four men and all four women on the state’s death row—towards the close of his second term. Although no one was executed during his eight years in office, Celeste said, “[a]s I look back on it, if I had really … been bold, I would have … just sa[id], ‘I’m going to commute them all to life [sentences], without the benefit of parole.’” Strickland said his biggest regret was not stopping executions in his state. “I wish I had done what my friend Jay Inslee, who’s the governor of Washington state, did when he became governor. He just said, ‘There will be no executions as long as I’m the governor of the state of Washington.’ And I wish I had had the courage to make that decision.” Strickland granted clemency five times, but allowed 17 executions to go forward. “I’m just convinced as long as we have the death penalty, innocent people are going to lose their lives …. [O]ur judicial system has serious problems that need attention,” he said.

In their New York Times op-ed, the six former governors wrote: “The achievement of high office demands that one be courageous in leadership. Mr. Brown now has the chance to do what others in our ranks have done after they became aware of the price paid for taking a human life. We were compelled to act because we have come to believe the death penalty is an expensive, error-prone and racist system, and also because our morality and our sense of decency demanded it.” Brown, they said, should commute California’s entire death row or “declare a moratorium on the death penalty and give Governor-elect Gavin Newsom the time he will need to figure out how to end a system broken beyond repair.” At an international conference on the death penalty at the Italian Parliament in November, the Community of Sant’ Egidio—a Catholic group with close connections to Pope Francis—and representatives of 25 countries, including the justice ministers of South Africa, Benin, Zimbabwe and Malaysia also called upon Brown to commute all death sentences in the state before leaving office.

(Richard Celeste, John Kitzhaber, Martin O’Malley, Bill Richardson, Pat Quinn, and Toney Anaya, Opinion: Jerry Brown Has the Power to Save 740 Lives. He Should Use It., New York Times, December 13, 2018; Philip Pullella, Group close to pope urges California’s Brown to commute all death sentences, Reuters, November 28, 2018; Darrel Rowland, Ohio’s former governors Celeste, Taft, Strickland found executions the most difficult part of job, Columbus Dispatch, November 28, 2018.) See Clemency and Executions.