By Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES, Nov 5 (Reuters) - California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Thursday he will commute the death sentences of all 548 inmates currently condemned to execution in his state, the largest death row in the Western Hemisphere.
The announcement, in a three-page letter addressed to "all Californians," came as Newsom, a Democrat who is expected to seek his party's presidential nomination in 2028, neared the end of his second and final four-year term as governor.
Newsom, who previously
served as mayor of San Francisco and lieutenant governor, declared a moratorium on executions in March 2019, about two months after first taking office as governor. California last put a prisoner to death in 2006 when Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor.
"After nearly 30 years in public office, I have come to understand the limits of what government can justly accomplish," Newsom wrote in his announcement. "I take this action because I firmly believe that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California's values."
The US debate over capital punishment intensified recently after the failed execution by the state of Tennessee on September 30 of condemned killer Christa Pike, who survived two attempts to inject her with lethal drugs.
Pike was hospitalized afterward and was sent back to prison on October 10.
The death penalty received further scrutiny after US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced plans to livestream the planned firing-squad execution of Nidal Hasan, who was convicted of killing 13 people and wounding more than 30 others in a shooting at the Fort Hood military base in Texas on November 5, 2009.
President Donald Trump later ruled out a livestream of the execution, but Hasan is still scheduled to be executed by firing squad on December 3.
About 15 countries still actively execute people, according to the human rights group Amnesty International. The death penalty remains on the books in 27 US states, although executions are concentrated in a handful of those states, and more than 20 states have abolished capital punishment altogether.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, California; Editing by Chris Reese and Daniel Wallis)
