SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Los Angeles County Public Defender Ricardo García joined civil rights advocates and community members at the California State Capitol on June 30 to call for universal clemency for everyone on California’s death row, according to a Pasadena Now report. García was joined by Abdi Soltani, executive director of the ACLU of Northern California, and other advocates urging Gov. Gavin Newsom to grant clemency to the state’s condemned population.
Community members advocating for universal clemency said their campaign is based on evidence they contend demonstrates systemic disparities, including concerns about racism, socioeconomic disadvantage and differences in how capital cases are handled across California counties.
García criticized the death penalty and the criminal legal system during the event.
“As public defenders, we see firsthand how profoundly unjust our criminal legal system is,” García said. “In California, this system is deeply stained by systemic racism, flaws that cannot be undone, when the punishment is death.”
Soltani echoed García’s criticism of capital punishment.
“Our nearly fifty-year experiment with the death penalty has demonstrated that capital punishment is an abject failure on every level,” Soltani said.
The Pasadena Now report also described visible community support for universal clemency, noting that demonstrators gathered at the Capitol with a banner addressed to Newsom. Organizers also cited roughly 25,000 signatures collected in support of universal clemency.
Advocates said reforming California’s use of the death penalty remained their primary objective. They argued that capital punishment is applied unevenly and disproportionately affects marginalized communities.
“The death penalty disproportionately targets people of color, people living in poverty, and individuals whose cases depend on the county in which they are prosecuted,” Pasadena Now wrote.
The ACLU has maintained its opposition to capital punishment for decades. In a 2012 article discussing the death penalty, the organization stated, “Capital punishment is an intolerable denial of civil liberties and is inconsistent with the fundamental values of our democratic system.”
The Pasadena Now report also noted Los Angeles County’s outsized role in California’s death penalty system, contributing to renewed calls from advocates to reform longstanding capital punishment policies.
The ACLU also published an article in 2019 following Newsom’s executive order establishing a moratorium on executions in California. Writing on behalf of the ACLU, Daisy Vieyra stated, “We commend Governor Newsom for exercising leadership and acknowledging that California’s death penalty is biased and broken beyond repair.”
The positions expressed in the Pasadena Now report are consistent with arguments the ACLU has made over the past decade regarding racial disparities, systemic inequities and concerns about wrongful convictions in capital cases.
The organization has argued that debate over the death penalty has remained a persistent issue in California and nationally, rather than a new concern.
As reflected in both earlier ACLU publications and the recent Capitol gathering, community members, ACLU leaders and Los Angeles County Public Defender Ricardo García all expressed support for either universal clemency for those on California’s death row or the complete abolition of the death penalty.
The June 30 gathering called for universal clemency for the 565 people on California’s death row. Organizers argued that granting clemency would eliminate the possibility of executing innocent people, end discriminatory practices associated with capital punishment and respond to the tens of thousands of Californians who have signed petitions supporting the effort.
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