California Has 564 People Facing Execution and No Executions in Two Decades as Newsom Weighs Mass Commutation

California has a death penalty that does not execute anyone.

The state holds 546 men and 18 women under death sentences, about one-quarter of all death sentences nationwide. Two decades have passed without an execution. Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered a formal moratorium in 2019, and he leaves office in January.

A system that sentences but does not execute

The CalMatters and Marshall Project analysis describes a standoff. Aggressive local prosecutors keep pursuing death sentences. More liberal statewide leaders block carrying them out. The result is a colossal backlog of appeals and a system that satisfies virtually nobody.

A lethal injection room at San Quentin State Prison cost $853,000 to build, was never used, and was closed and dismantled in 2019. The prison now focuses on educational and rehabilitation programs.

The commutation push

Advocates in California and international human rights groups are urging Newsom to commute every death sentence before he goes. Their argument: it would let hundreds of people spend the rest of their lives in prison rather than face execution if a pro-death penalty candidate ever becomes governor.

The scale would be historic. Commuting all of California's sentences would cut the national total of people under a death sentence by more than a quarter. Former President Joe Biden commuted 37 death sentences on his way out of office.

Newsom could not act alone the way Biden did. The California Supreme Court would have to approve commutations for people with multiple felony convictions, which covers more than half of the relevant cases.

What Newsom has said

Newsom declined to answer questions about commutations. His spokesperson, Diana Crofts-Pelayo, wrote in an email: "Governor Newsom has been clear about his position on the death penalty since his first year in office, when he ordered a moratorium on executions. He believes the intentional killing of another person is wrong."

That statement states a position. It does not say whether he will commute anyone.

The politics are plain. Newsom is widely expected to seek the Democratic nomination for president in 2028. A mass commutation would put hundreds of convicted killers' sentences on his record just as that campaign begins. Sitting on the decision also carries a cost, since the moratorium he ordered expires with his term.

The analysis also reviewed data on 9,000 U.S. death sentences and found inequities in California dating back 50 years. Newsom himself has decried some of them.

How the politics of capital punishment have shifted

The national mood on capital punishment has moved a long way. When Christa Pike tortured and killed her classmate Colleen Slemmer in 1995, Gallup found 77% of Americans favored the death penalty. The most recent Gallup figure, from 2025, is 52%. CNN reported that attempts to execute Pike by lethal injection failed on a Wednesday night.

A handful of Southern states, led by Florida, Texas and Oklahoma, are responsible for the bulk of executions today.

The parties have also traded places. In 1992, then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton left the presidential campaign trail to oversee the execution of Rickey Ray Rector, who was convicted of killing a police officer in 1981. Rector had brain damage from a gunshot wound, and later Supreme Court rulings barring executions of people with intellectual disabilities would likely prevent such an execution today. Clinton said the day before his trip: "We should no longer feel guilty about protecting the innocent as Democrats."

In 1994 Clinton signed the Federal Death Penalty Act, part of a crime bill engineered by then-Sen. Joe Biden, which established procedures for 60 federal capital offenses. By 2016, abolition was part of the Democratic Party's official platform.

CNN cites the exoneration of at least 200 people from death row since 1973 as one factor in the shift. In 2000, Republican Illinois Gov. George Ryan imposed the first statewide moratorium after more than a dozen death row inmates there were found innocent over the decades.

Newsom has until January. If he asks for mass commutation, the California Supreme Court would have to approve the cases involving people with multiple felony convictions, more than half of the total. Whether he makes that request has not been announced.