Generic California State Capitol, Sacramento; not the announcement or a prison. Photo: Leo_Visions / Unsplash (resized; small background sign removed).
SACRAMENTO, Nov. 5, 2026 – California Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to change the state’s death sentences to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, his office announced Thursday, starting a clemency process rather than completing every commutation at once.
Newsom can commute about 40% of the sentences himself, while nearly 60% require California Supreme Court approval before they can be finalized, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The proposed punishment is life in prison without parole. The plan does not release the prisoners, erase their convictions or abolish California’s death-penalty law. Future death sentences remain possible unless the law changes.
Court review remains a condition
The cases requiring the high court’s review involve prisoners with felony convictions before their death sentence or additional convictions while awaiting execution, the Times reported. That approval requirement makes it important to distinguish Newsom’s announced intention from a final outcome for every person affected.
Newsom issued a moratorium on executions in 2019. California last executed a prisoner in 2006. The new plan would change the affected sentences themselves, going beyond a pause on carrying out executions, but it would not remove capital punishment from state law.
The Times reported that the process comes in Newsom’s final months as governor and that the cases needing court approval would require review before his term ends in January. Thursday’s announcement is not confirmation that the court has approved those cases.
A moral objection, not a claim that every conviction was wrong
Newsom said his decision reflects his opposition to the state taking life. In his letter, quoted by the Times, he said state-sanctioned killing was incompatible with California’s values and acknowledged that the announcement could bring back painful memories for victims’ families.
His position is a moral objection to the punishment, not a finding that the prisoners were wrongly convicted. Commutation reduces a sentence; it is not an exoneration.
Newsom also acknowledged that voters had kept the death penalty in state law, while arguing that the governor’s clemency authority exists for cases in which he cannot reconcile its application with justice. His announcement relies on that authority rather than a repeal of the law.
Victims’ families voice different views
The Times described sharply differing reactions among relatives of victims. Bethany Webb, whose sister Laura was killed in the 2011 Seal Beach mass shooting and whose mother was injured, said the death-penalty process itself could be brutalizing for families.
Sandy Friend, whose young son Michael Lyons was murdered in 1996, opposed the move, telling the newspaper it disrespected victims. The contrasting responses show why the governor’s position should not be presented as a view shared by all families affected by capital crimes.
For now, the change is a plan to replace death sentences with permanent imprisonment, subject to the required legal steps. California’s moratorium remains distinct from both those individual commutations and any future decision to remove the death penalty from law.
JBizNews Desk | California
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