SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – California Gov. Gavin Newsom is halting the execution of more than 700 condemned inmates on the nation’s largest death row Wednesday, for at least as long as he’s governor.
He will issue an executive order granting a reprieve to each one of the state’s 737 condemned inmates, his office told The Associated Press.
He’s also withdrawing the lethal injection regulations that death penalty opponents have already tied up in court. And he’s shuttering the new execution chamber at San Quentin State Prison that has never been used.
California hasn’t executed anyone since 2006, under then-Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and inmates are far more likely to die of old age.
Since then, the death row population has grown to house one of every four condemned inmates in the United States. They include Richard Davis, who kidnapped 12-year-old Polly Klaas during a slumber party and strangled her, and Lonnie Franklin Jr., convicted of killing nine women and a teenage girl in Los Angeles. He’s known as the “Grim Sleeper” because detectives thought he took a 14-year break in killing between 1988 and 2002.
The state’s voters have narrowly supported the death penalty, most recently in 2016 when they voted to speed up the process.
Newsom’s office said he can act unilaterally because he’s enacting a moratorium, not changing anyone’s sentence. He’s not commuting any death sentences, which in many cases would require agreement from the state Supreme Court. A governor needs approval from the state Supreme Court to pardon or commute the sentence of anyone twice convicted of a felony, and the justices last year blocked several clemency requests by former Gov. Jerry Brown.
While the governor’s move is certain to be challenged in court, aides cite his power to grant reprieves written into the state Constitution.
“I do not believe that a civilized society can claim to be a leader in the world as long as its government continues to sanction the premeditated and discriminatory execution of its people,” Newsom said in prepared remarks. “In short, the death penalty is inconsistent with our bedrock values and strikes at the very heart of what it means to be a Californian.”
He called the death penalty “a failure” that “has discriminated against defendants who are mentally ill, black and brown, or can’t afford expensive legal representation.”
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