California prosecutors and law enforcement organizations have reacted angrily to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decision to commute 548 death sentences to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, but their opposition obscures a basic reality: California has not executed anyone in more than 20 years, and the governor’s action will not release a single person from prison.
The punishment changes on paper, but for most Californians, the practical consequences are limited. Those convicted of murder will remain incarcerated, and under the terms of the commutations, they will not become eligible for parole.
California’s last execution occurred in January 2006. Newsom imposed a formal moratorium in 2019, and Gov.-elect Xavier Becerra has indicated he intends to maintain that policy.
Even before Newsom’s announcement, California’s death penalty had become a system in which prosecutors continued seeking death sentences, courts continued reviewing them, and taxpayers continued paying for them, despite the absence of executions.
The controversy now raises a fundamental question about the value of maintaining an extraordinarily expensive punishment that the state has demonstrated little willingness or ability to carry out.
Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman and Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer have both indicated that their offices will continue pursuing death sentences in qualifying cases.
They are legally entitled to do so. Newsom’s commutations do not repeal the death penalty, which remains authorized under California law.
But that legal authority does not answer whether pursuing additional capital cases is a responsible use of public resources.
Death penalty prosecutions are substantially more expensive than comparable murder prosecutions seeking life without parole.
Capital cases generally require more extensive pretrial litigation, lengthy jury selection, specialized defense representation and separate proceedings to determine whether death should be imposed. A death sentence also triggers mandatory appellate review and potentially decades of post-conviction litigation.
Those costs are not limited to prosecutors. They extend to public defenders, appointed counsel, investigators, expert witnesses, courts and the institutions responsible for reviewing convictions and sentences.
According to a 2025 report by the Habeas Corpus Resource Center, cited by CalMatters, California spends approximately $200 million annually on legal costs associated with capital cases.
Yet the system remains profoundly backlogged.
The governor’s office reported that 376 condemned people were awaiting appointment or funding of state habeas counsel, while 220 had waited at least 15 years.
The result is a costly legal apparatus that neither delivers executions nor consistently provides timely review of the convictions and sentences it produces.
For district attorneys who insist on continuing capital prosecutions, the question is therefore not simply whether they possess the authority to seek death. It is what additional public benefit justifies the extraordinary expense when life without parole already provides permanent incapacitation.
Prosecutors and victims’ advocates argue that death sentences reflect the gravity of certain murders, honor jury verdicts and provide justice to surviving families. Those concerns deserve recognition, particularly for families who have spent decades navigating the criminal justice system.
But the public discussion has also revealed that victims’ families do not speak with one voice.
Marc Klaas, whose 12-year-old daughter Polly was kidnapped and murdered in 1993, has emerged as one of the most visible critics of Newsom’s decision.
Klaas has argued that the governor is disregarding victims and undermining the punishment imposed on those responsible for particularly horrific crimes.
Yet Polly Klaas’ sisters, Jess and Annie Nichol, have taken a very different position.
According to reporting by the San Francisco Chronicle, Newsom met with the sisters in a former death row cell at San Quentin in late October. Their conversation helped influence his decision to commute the sentences.
Both sisters oppose capital punishment and have expressed concern about the punitive policies advanced in their sister’s name.
Annie Nichol told the Chronicle, “There’s a relief in knowing the state is stepping away from another death in Polly’s name.”
Their perspective complicates the suggestion that opposition to Newsom’s decision represents the unified position of victims’ families.
Some families regard executions as an essential component of justice. Others believe the prolonged pursuit of death sentences compounds their suffering, prolongs litigation and diverts resources from services that could help survivors.
Neither perspective should be presented as representing every family affected by murder.
Meanwhile, California’s death penalty faces a challenge that extends well beyond the governor’s clemency authority.
In Office of State Public Defender v. Bonta, the state public defender and civil rights organizations are challenging the constitutionality of California’s capital punishment system under the equal protection provisions of the California Constitution.
The lawsuit argues that the death penalty is administered in a racially discriminatory manner, with empirical research showing disparities involving the race of defendants and victims.
One central concern is that murders involving white victims have historically been more likely to produce death sentences than otherwise comparable cases involving victims of color.
The challenge also concerns the substantial geographic variation in the application of capital punishment.
California does not have a uniform statewide policy requiring prosecutors to seek death whenever a case meets the statutory eligibility criteria.
Instead, individual district attorneys exercise considerable discretion, meaning that the decision to pursue an execution can depend heavily on where a murder occurred.
Some counties have aggressively pursued death sentences, while others have used capital punishment sparingly or abandoned it as a matter of prosecutorial policy.
That creates the possibility that two defendants accused of comparably serious crimes could face dramatically different punishments based partly on geography rather than the circumstances of their offenses.
Geographic variation alone does not automatically establish a constitutional violation. Prosecutorial discretion is an established feature of the criminal justice system, and the circumstances of individual murder cases vary considerably.
But when geographic patterns intersect with substantial racial disparities, the legal questions become more serious.
The petitioners contend that the cumulative evidence establishes a system in which race influences who is selected for the state’s most severe punishment, violating California’s constitutional guarantee of equal protection.
The California Supreme Court has permitted the challenge to move forward toward an evidentiary hearing, creating the possibility of a judicial ruling that could fundamentally alter the state’s capital punishment system.
That outcome is not assured. The challengers must establish their claims under the applicable constitutional standards, and the courts have not determined that California’s death penalty is unconstitutional.
Nevertheless, the litigation presents a serious threat to the continued operation of a system already burdened by extensive delays, substantial costs and decades without an execution.
If the courts ultimately conclude that the death penalty is administered in violation of constitutional guarantees, California could face a broader legal reckoning than Newsom’s commutations alone would produce.
The governor’s action also faces its own legal requirements.
Under Article V, Section 8 of the California Constitution, commutations involving individuals twice convicted of felonies require a recommendation from the California Supreme Court, with four justices concurring.
Newsom has requested that recommendation for 382 people. The commutations have not yet taken effect, and opponents have indicated they may challenge the action.
But the immediate political controversy should not obscure what Newsom’s proposal actually does.
It does not overturn murder convictions. It does not grant pardons. It does not make the affected individuals eligible for parole.
Indeed, the governor’s office has emphasized that the recipients are specifically excluded from the new Board of Parole Hearings commutation and resentencing procedures that critics have cited as a potential pathway to release.
The practical difference between the existing death sentences and life without parole is therefore not that convicted murderers will return to their communities.
It is that California will stop maintaining the prospect of executing people whose executions have already been suspended for years.
For Hochman, Spitzer and other prosecutors determined to continue seeking death, the question remains whether additional capital prosecutions can be justified when the state is unlikely to carry out the punishment, when the appeals process is already severely backlogged, and when the constitutional foundation of the system itself remains under challenge.
California can continue imposing death sentences under existing law. Whether doing so serves justice, public safety or fiscal responsibility is a very different question.
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