Gov. Gavin Newsom, who three years ago placed a moratorium on executions, now is moving to dismantle the nation’s largest death row by moving all condemned inmates to other prisons.
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom, who three years ago placed a moratorium on executions, now is moving to dismantle the United States’ largest death row by moving all condemned inmates to other prisons within two years. The goal is to turn the section at San Quentin State Prison into a “positive, healing environment.” Newsom said Monday it’s an outgrowth of his opposition to what he believes is a deeply flawed system, one that “gets my blood boiling.” “The prospect of your ending up on death row has more to do with your wealth and race than it does your guilt or innocence,” he said. “We talk about justice, we preach justice, but as a nation, we don’t practice it on death row.” California, which last carried out an execution in 2006, is one of 28 states that maintain death rows, along with the U.S. government, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. While other states like Illinois have abolished executions, California is merging its condemned inmates into the general prison population with no expectation that any will face execution anytime in the near future. “We are starting the process of closing death row to repurpose and transform the current housing units into something innovative and anchored in rehabilitation,” California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman Vicky Waters told The Associated Press. Oregon similarly transferred its much smaller condemned population to other inmate housing two years ago. Newsom, a Democrat, imposed a moratorium on executions in 2019 and shut down the state’s execution chamber at San Quentin, north of San Francisco. Now his administration is turning on its head a 2016 voter-approved initiative intended to expedite executions by capitalizing on one provision that allowed inmates to be moved off death row. “The underlying motive of the administration is to mainstream as many of these condemned murderers as possible,” said Michael Rushford, president of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which backed the initiative.
