Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday that he will commute the sentences of all 548 people on California’s death row to life without the possibility of parole.
The governor, who instituted a moratorium on executions two months after he took office, said he made the move based on a moral opposition to state-sanctioned killing and a belief that it undermines the foundation of California’s legal system. He had been weighing the decision for months. “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,” Newsom said in an open letter to Californians.
Newsom’s move represents the largest act of mass clemency in U.S. history, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. More than half of the cases, those involving people who were convicted of more than one felony, will require review by the California Supreme Court under the state’s Constitution.
As much of a scumbag as Gavin Newsom is, this is the right move. Due to the possibility of executing an innocent person, it not bringing the victim(s) back, it being cruel and ihhumane, it being applied unfairly and its failure to deter crime, the death penalty is wrong on all counts:
RELATED: Newsom's Death Row PR Move: Legal or Not?
