California Governor Gavin Newsom announced on Thursday that he intends to convert all death sentences in the state into life imprisonment without the possibility of early parole. Currently, 548 individuals in California are sentenced to death, which constitutes about a quarter of all death sentences handed down across the United States. Newsom’s move would represent the largest-scale conversion of death sentences to life imprisonment in modern US history.
The Democrat stated, “I have decided to use my constitutional pardon power to convert every death sentence in California into life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.” He explained his rationale, noting, “I am taking this measure because I am firmly convinced that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with the values of California, it undermines the foundations of our justice system, and it degrades every one of us. I know that within our imperfect legal system, we cannot remain true to our core values-especially justice and human dignity-while carrying out executions.”
Newsom, who has expressed ambitions for a presidential run, is also using this conversion of death sentences to counter recent proposals by US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who advocated for live-streaming executions carried out by an execution squad. It is worth noting that US President Donald Trump had previously blocked Hegseth’s plan, though he had praised the endeavor as a “strong deterrent.”
