Newsom's 548 Death Row Commutations Need California Supreme Court Sign-Off for 382 Cases as Victims' Families Object

Since Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on a Thursday that he would commute the sentences of all 548 inmates on California's death row, the fight has moved from the governor's office to victims' families, district attorneys and, soon, the state Supreme Court.

The order converts every death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. It is described as the largest mass commutation of death sentences in modern U.S. history.

One week later, on Thursday, Nov. 12, families of victims gathered outside the Orange County District Attorney's Office in Santa Ana to say what they thought of it.

The families

Faye Jenkins's daughter and son-in-law were tortured and murdered in their Riverside County home in 2008. Jenkins said four Marines killed her daughter.

"We voted for this," Jenkins told reporters. "Who gives you that right to make the decision for all of us? You didn't ask me, you didn't ask my husband, you didn't ask other families."

Steve Herr attended 203 court dates before Daniel Wozniak was convicted and sentenced to die for killing Herr's son, Sam, and Sam's friend Juri "Julie" Kibuishi in Orange County in 2010. "I thought that was the end of that horrible nightmare," Herr said. "That was not to be."

Sandy Friend's eight-year-old son, Michael Lyons, was abducted on his way home from school in Yuba City in 1996 and killed by Robert Boyd Rhoades. She called the decision a betrayal. "To wipe all of that away with one stroke of a pen, without looking at the details or looking into the eyes of the families, was completely unthinkable," Friend said.

Marc Klaas, whose 12-year-old daughter Polly was kidnapped and murdered in 1993, told Fox News Digital that Newsom "just gave the gift of life to [hundreds of] people who took the gift of life from their victims." Polly's killer, Richard Allen Davis, remains on death row.

Not every family reacted with fury. LaVerne Brison, whose sister Cynthia Annette Johnson was one of 14 victims of Chester Dewayne Turner, said she has no hard feelings toward Newsom. "I don't put the blame on (Newsom)," she said. "After all, he just inherited it."

The prosecutors

San Luis Obispo County District Attorney Dan Dow posted a statement on Instagram naming victims of condemned men: Rachel Newhouse and Aundria Crawford, killed by Rex Allan Krebs, and 20-month-old Kesha Gurke, killed by Michael Whisenhunt.

"Juries chose justice case by case, voters chose it five times, and one outgoing governor tried to erase it all with a pen," Dow said.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman noted that the order does not eliminate the death penalty. "Only the Legislature or the voters can do that," he said.

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer argued that "life without the possibility of parole is absolute nonsense," saying people sentenced to it are getting out of prison. Greg Totten, CEO of the California District Attorneys Association, said clemency "was never intended to serve as a substitute for the legislative process or to allow one elected official to effectively nullify hundreds of jury verdicts."

The commutations also cover Charles Ng, convicted in 1999 of murdering six men, three women and two male infants, and Richard Allen Farley, who killed seven people in a 1988 workplace shooting at ESL Inc. in Sunnyvale.

What Newsom says

Newsom, a term-limited Democrat, laid out his reasoning in an open letter to Californians. He called the capital punishment system flawed and said executions cannot be reconciled with the state's values.

"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," he wrote. He also wrote that "state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California's values, undermines the foundations of our legal system and diminishes each of us."

He did not claim the families were wrong to be angry. "I deeply respect the views of those who will strongly disagree with my decision, including some families of victims who have suffered the worst possible loss," he wrote.

California has not carried out an execution since 2006. Newsom imposed a formal moratorium shortly after taking office in 2019 and ordered the execution chamber at San Quentin dismantled.

The voters

California voters have had the chance to end capital punishment and declined. In 2012 they rejected Proposition 34, which would have abolished the death penalty. In 2016 they rejected repeal again, by a relatively narrow margin, while approving a measure meant to speed up death penalty cases.

That is the record Jenkins and Dow are pointing to. Newsom's letter does not claim voters have changed their minds. It rests on his own conviction, in his words, that "individually and collectively we are stronger as a society when we reject state-sanctioned killing."

The legal hurdle

The state Constitution bars a governor from commuting the sentence of anyone twice convicted of a felony unless the California Supreme Court recommends it, with four justices concurring. According to the San Luis Obispo District Attorney's Office and The Associated Press, that applies to 382 of the 548 inmates, about 70%.

Newsom acknowledged the problem in his letter. "While I am confident this act of categorical clemency is consistent with California law, I acknowledge that my decision to exercise my constitutional clemency authority requires the Justices to participate in a weighty decision they did not choose to take up and with which they may personally disagree," he wrote.

His office has asked the justices to review each case on its own merits and to hear from victims' family members, according to the California Post. The state Supreme Court's press office had no comment. A case-by-case review of 382 files would be a large workload.

Anne Marie Schubert, a former district attorney who now leads the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, said her group will legally challenge the governor's order. "We are doing this on behalf of crime victims and the rule of law," she said.

The open question is whether four justices will sign off, and on what timeline. Until they act, most of the commutations are not final.