We’ve just seen a transformative moment in America’s death penalty history | Austin Sarat

California governor Gavin Newsom has granted clemency to everyone on the state’s death row, commuting their sentences and removing the threat of execution. The article presents the decision as a major moment in US death penalty history: it advances Newsom’s record against capital punishment and suggests that opposing the death penalty may no longer carry the political risk it did for presidential hopefuls such as Michael Dukakis in 1988.

Newsom said the state could not morally kill people, while acknowledging the suffering of victims, their families and communities. He argued that selecting some cases for clemency over others would create unequal classes of murder victims. The decision applies even to people convicted of notorious crimes, including Richard Allen Davis, who murdered Polly Klaas, and Joseph Naso, convicted of killing four women; the article describes the move as a direct rejection of state execution on moral grounds.