Innocence
,Jan 30, 2023
Kevin Cooper (pictured) is a death-row prisoner in California who was convicted of murdering four people in 1985. He has maintained his innocence of the offense. On January 13, 2023, a special counsel appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom to conduct …
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…
Sentencing Alternatives
,Conditions on Death Row
,Mar 21, 2023
Death-sentenced prisoners in California will be moved out of San Quentin State Prison (pictured) and placed in other maximum security facilities, as part of a broad plan announced by Governor Gavin Newsom on March 17, 2023. The governor seeks to “…
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
Victims' Families
,New Voices
,Oct 04, 2023
On September 26, 2023, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón announced that he would not seek the death penalty in the case of slain Sheriff’s Deputy Ryan Clinkunbroomer. “If I thought that the death penalty was going to stop people f…
Race
,Apr 10, 2024
On April 9, 2024, the California Office of the State Public Defender, along with several civil rights groups, filed an extraordinary writ petition at the California Supreme Court arguing that the state’s capital punishment system violates the stat…
May 04, 2023
A recent article in the The Guardian described the reactions of some of the California prisoners who have been moved from San Quentin’s death row and
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…
Race
,Apr 09, 2024
On April 5, 2024, Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen filed petitions asking the county superior court to resentence 15 death-sentenced men from his county to sentences of life in prison without the possibility for parole. These petiti…
