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.

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