A nonprofit public-interest advocacy group announced a legal challenge on Thursday to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s commutation of sentences for 548 inmates on California’s death row, and Southern California prosecutors quickly backed the move.
“We stand firmly with the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in challenging this arbitrary commutation that sidelines victims’ families and disregards the will of California voters, juries and judges,” Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said in a statement. “When we bring these cases on behalf of victims’ families, we make a promise to them that if they let the justice system do its job and don’t take justice into their own hands, we will let the facts and the law play out in a courtroom. And if the facts and the law justify the ultimate penalty, that is the penalty we will seek.”
The CJLF announced the legal challenge during a news conference Thursday afternoon in Sacramento. Foundation officials were joined by representatives of groups representing crime victims, law enforcement agencies, district attorneys and probation officers.
According to the foundation, Newsom’s decision to commute the death sentences of 548 inmates to life in prison without the possibility of parole “disregards the will of California voters, who have repeatedly affirmed their support for the death penalty at the ballot box.”
“Newsom’s sweeping action overrides these repeated decisions by California voters and undermines the verdicts of juries and the judgments of courts that carefully considered the evidence, the law, and the horrific crimes committed,” according to a foundation statement. “The victims who are directly impacted were not given a voice in the governor’s unliteral decision to override California’s justice system. The goal of this press conference is to provide a platform for them to be heard.”
The termed-out Newsom, who will leave office Jan. 4, announced the commutations last week.
“I take this action because I firmly believe that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values, undermines the foundations of our legal system and diminishes each of us,” Newsom wrote in an open letter to California residents. “I know we cannot execute people in our imperfect legal system and remain true to our core values, first among them justice and human decency.”
California has not executed anyone since Jan. 17, 2006.
Newsom, a long-time opponent of the death penalty, issued an executive order in 2019 placing a moratorium on executions in the state.
“The people sentenced to death in California caused indescribable suffering to victims, their families, communities and our state as a whole,” Newsom wrote in his message. “The harm they inflicted persists across generations. Many Californians feel that those who commit brutal crimes deserve to die. But as governor, I have concluded the state cannot morally kill them. I do, however, pray that this action will finally separate the memories of the victims of these crimes from the fate of those who harmed them. We can now let these offenders die in obscurity while we forever remember and honor their victims.
Newsom noted that the cases of some of the people on death row with multiple convictions will require review by the state Supreme Court.
According to Hochman’s office, about 382 of the 548 cases affected by Newsom’s order involve people convicted of more than one felony. His office also noted that 162 of the condemned inmates being given commutations are from Los Angeles, including “Southside Slayer” Chester Turner and “Hollywood Ripper” Michael Gargiulo.
In Orange County, District Attorney Todd Spitzer held a news conference Thursday morning with the relatives of crime victims whose killers are receiving commutations from the governor. He said he will also file papers with the state Supreme Court in opposition to Newsom’s order.
“We are obviously understanding that he (Newsom) has the right to start this process, but the condemned inmate under the law needs to make this request in the first instance,” Spitzer told KTLA5 at the event. “That’s the immediate correction they need to make. These inmates didn’t ask for this. So he didn’t follow any of the processes. And we’re hoping the Supreme Court will stay this, have hearings on it, consider these on an individual basis and then revert it back to the next governor, Gov. (Xavier) Becerra, to make these decisions.”
California Gov. Newsom says he will commute all death sentences in state to life without parole