Governor Gavin Newsom has only months left in office. In 2019, he halted executions, recognizing the racial injustice and irreversible risks of California’s death penalty. But a future governor can reverse that decision. A pause can be unpaused.

California makes mistakes, and those mistakes can cost innocent people their lives. Since 1981, eight people have been exonerated and released from California’s death row. Every one of them was a man of color. When the state gets it wrong, it does not get it wrong equally.

On September 30, Tennessee’s horrifying attempt to execute Christa Pike left her alive after two lethal injections and hospitalized with severe injuries. Tennessee’s governor has suspended executions. California must exhibit moral leadership and go further.

More than 500 people remain under death sentences in California, the largest death row population in the nation. The League of Women Voters of California opposes the death penalty and urges Governor Newsom to grant universal clemency. By commuting every death sentence he will remove the threat of execution for the incarcerated people living under that daily torment.

Urge Governor Newsom to commute every death sentence before he leaves office.