Newsom says he will commute all 548 California death sentences to life without parole; 382 cases need state Supreme Court review

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, that he has decided to commute every death sentence in the state to life in prison without the possibility of parole, writing in an open letter that he would “issue the same commutation to every condemned person.” The letter puts the number of people under sentence of death at 548.¹

The governor’s office also posted a 28-page “List of Intended Clemency Recipients.” It gives each person’s California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation number, charging and trial counties, death judgment date and case number. SignalData counted 548 entries on the list, 382 of them marked with an asterisk, which the document says denotes a person with more than one felony conviction.²

Supreme Court review

The letter says California’s Constitution requires the state Supreme Court to review clemency grants to anyone twice convicted of a felony, which involves the justices in what Newsom called “a unique inter-branch constitutional process.” He wrote that he was confident the action is consistent with state law.¹

TIME reported that 382 of the cases need the court’s review. It quoted Elisabeth Semel, co-director of the Death Penalty Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, as saying the court’s role is “extremely limited.”³ CalMatters reported that four of the seven justices must sign off on those cases.⁴

What the letter says

Newsom wrote that “state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values.” He said he had weighed treating categories of crimes differently but concluded that doing so would create “two classes of murder victims.” He said the action does not repeal the death penalty, which remains with the Legislature and voters, and that prosecutors, juries and courts keep discretion in individual cases. “As Governor, I alone bear responsibility for this decision and its impact,” he wrote.¹

The decision follows Executive Order N-09-19, which Newsom signed March 13, 2019. It granted a reprieve to everyone sentenced to death, repealed the state’s lethal injection protocol and closed the death chamber at San Quentin. The order said it did not release anyone or alter any sentence.⁵

California last carried out an execution in 2006, according to the corrections department, which lists 13 executions in the state since 1978.⁶ CBS Sacramento reported that voters rejected death penalty repeal measures in 2012 and 2016.⁷

Reaction

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer, a Republican, said, “You cannot have crime without punishment,” TIME reported. San Bernardino County District Attorney Jason Anderson called the move “political showmanship,” according to TIME.³

Anne Marie Schubert, chief executive of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation and a former prosecutor, called the action “the most grotesque violation of victims’ rights I’ve ever seen” and said victims’ families were not notified, CalMatters reported. CalMatters reported that she pledged to challenge the commutations in the state Supreme Court. Topo Padilla, president of Crime Victims United, objected to one person undoing sentences “because of his personal beliefs or feelings,” CalMatters reported.⁴

Marc Klaas, whose daughter Polly was killed in 1993, said before the decision that the prospect of the commutations “upsets me terribly,” CalMatters reported. Polly Klaas’ sister, Jess Nichol, said in a statement reported by CalMatters, “The system tells survivors that execution matters to our healing. It doesn’t.”⁴

Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the commutations “reflect what justice demands,” The Associated Press reported.⁸

What the records do not show

• None of the records SignalData opened is a signed commutation. The list describes the people on it as intended recipients, and neither it nor the letter gives a date the commutations take effect or says whether the Supreme Court has acted.¹²
• The corrections department’s condemned population summary, updated Oct. 2, 2026, counted 563 people. The records do not explain the difference from the 548 in the governor’s letter.⁹¹
• SignalData could not open the governor’s news release page, which blocked automated access.