Executions Overview
,Sep 01, 2021
A California trial court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by conservative media commentator John V. Lacy that had challenged the constitutionality of the March 2019 executive order by Governor Gavin Newsom
Innocence
,Jun 01, 2021
California Governor Gavin Newsom has ordered an independent investigation into the case of Kevin Cooper, who has consistently maintained his innocence in the 1983 quadruple-murder for which he was sentenced to dea…
Feb 01, 2022
California’s death row — the largest in the country — will be dismantled within two years, Governor Gavin Newsom announced on January 31, 2022. Under Newsom’s plan, the California Department of Corrections…
Mental Illness
,Race
,Recent Legislative Activity
,Oct 03, 2022
California Governor Gavin Newsom (pictured) has signed into law a bill that provides death-row prisoners relief from convictions or death sentences obtained “on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin.” The Calif…
Arbitrariness
,Race
,Oct 28, 2020
Calling California capital sentencing proceedings “infected by racism,” Governor Gavin Newsom (pictured) has filed a brief in the California Supreme Court supporting a death-row prisoner’s claim that capital punis…
Arbitrariness
,Sep 10, 2021
The California Supreme Court has upheld the state’s death-penalty statute against a constitutional challenge that had the potential to overturn the sentences of hundreds of people on California’s death row. In a unanimous ruling i…
Race
,Sentencing Data
,Jan 21, 2020
A DPIC analysis of executions and new death sentences in 2019 has found that even as death penalty usage declined across the United States, racial disparities in its application persisted. Studies have
Apr 01, 2021
California Governor Gavin Newsom has appointed Rob Bonta (pictured), a state legislator who co-authored a proposed state constitutional amendment to ban capital punishment, as California’s attorne…
