California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) announced that he will grant clemency to 548 people on death row.
In an open letter on the decision, the outgoing governor explained that he believes “state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values, undermines the foundations of our legal system, and diminishes each of us.” Newsom wrote that “we cannot execute people in our imperfect legal system and remain true to our core values, first among them justice and human decency.”
The letter acknowledged that while many “feel that those who commit brutal crimes deserve to die,” Newsom has instead concluded that California “cannot morally kill them.”
“California voters have voted to keep the death penalty on the books and I respect that,” the governor wrote, adding, “But the constitution also gave every governor clemency authority, and that power exists for moments when law as applied cannot be squared with justice. For me, this is that moment.”
Despite noting that many in the state support the death penalty, Newsom said that many have also concluded that the action is “inconsistent” with the state’s values and “public safety goals.”
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Those who were on death row are now expected to “die in obscurity.”
Xavier Becerra, the state’s incoming governor and the former Health and Human Services Secretary under the Biden administration, previously vowed to extend the state’s moratorium on the death penalty.
His stance is a pivot from one he held in 2017, when he appeared to support the death penalty, The Los Angeles Times reported. “I support the death penalty, but I hate the way it’s being executed,” he said at the time. “If you commit some heinous crime where you have taken the life of someone else, and you knew that there was a death penalty in place in that place where you committed that crime, then you should face the punishment for what you’ve done,” he explained. “It doesn’t give me pleasure to say that, but I simply do believe there’s a simple justice in that.”
This article originally appeared on American Faith and is reposted with permission.
