April 2026

March 13, 2026 – By the Editorial Board.

The use of the death penalty has risen sharply in the United States, with more executions in 2025 than any year since 2009. It is a cruel and unjust development.

In theory, the death penalty is reserved for “the worst of the worst.” In practice, it is very different. People who are executed for their crimes are disproportionately poor or intellectually disabled and often lacked good lawyers. They are also more likely to be sentenced to death if they have been convicted of killing a white person.

Anthony Boyd, who maintained his innocence until Alabama executed him last year at age 54, had an inexperienced court-appointed lawyer and was convicted on disputed eyewitness testimony. Charles Flores, 56, has spent 27 years on death row in Texas for a murder conviction based solely on unreliable testimony from a hypnotized witness. Robert Roberson, who has autism, remains on death row there despite having been convicted on now-debunked evidence that he had shaken his daughter to death.

Adding to the injustice, executions often go awry and become a grisly spectacle. As Alabama administered nitrous gas to kill Mr. Boyd, he violently thrashed and drew agonized breaths for 30 minutes.

The death penalty is a fraught subject because most people on death row are guilty of murder and deserve tough punishment. But a life sentence without parole is a tough punishment. And the death penalty is both unavoidably flawed and unworthy of a decent society. As long it exists, it will disproportionately spare criminals with more resources and be used against people who are poor, mentally disabled or otherwise vulnerable.

Much of the world has come to this same conclusion. The list of countries that have abolished or effectively ended the death penalty includes all of Western Europe, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Morocco, South Africa and Australia. By continuing to execute people regularly, the United States puts itself in the company of only about 20 countries, among them Afghanistan, China, Iran and North Korea.

Over the past year, the United States has become even more of an outlier among democracies because the states that still conduct executions have accelerated the pace. Many of these states have in recent years passed secrecy laws to hide the details of what they are doing. We urge Americans not to look away.

In the initial years of the 21st century, more Americans recognized the flaws with the death penalty, and its use fell sharply. Opponents highlighted a wave of DNA-related exonerations, including of more than 20 people who were cleared after having spent time on death row.

More than 200 people on death row have been exonerated since 1973.

Botched executions played a role too. After death-penalty opponents pressured some pharmaceutical companies into stopping the sale of lethal-injection drugs, states resorted to less reliable workarounds that led to gruesome scenes in execution chambers. Many doctors refused to participate, and amateurs filled the gap, sometimes administering lethal drugs improperly and causing prolonged suffering. Those cases contributed to public discomfort.

Political leaders from both parties responded to the growing recognition of the death penalty’s barbaric and arbitrary nature. In 2003, George Ryan, then the Republican governor of Illinois, issued a blanket commutation to death row inmates, citing “a shameless record of convicting innocent people.” Democrats went further, all but abandoning the practice in states they governed. Virginia, which executed 65 people in the 1990s, abolished the death penalty in 2021. The federal government contributed to the slowdown, too. It executed nobody during George W. Bush’s second term and both of Barack Obama’s terms.

But popular support for the death penalty has never disappeared, despite the injustices. The last time that voters rejected it in a ballot referendum was in Oregon in 1964. Twenty states continued to put people to death in the 2010s.

The recent surge in executions has four main causes.

First, almost all states that have executed someone since 2012 have passed secrecy laws, allowing them to obscure the cruelty of executions. Indiana, for example, now blocks reporters from witnessing executions. Other laws allow states to hide the details of their shady efforts to buy lethal injection drugs. Consider that, in 2012, Idaho officials reportedly set up a meeting in a parking lot where they traded a suitcase of cash for lethal-injection drugs. The new laws try to minimize public backlash to wildly inappropriate practices.

Second, states have begun to seek alternatives for lethal injections, given the drugs’ cost and their unreliable supply. Last year, South Carolina executed three prisoners by firing squad. Yet this method, too, can go badly. In April, a firing squad’s bullets reportedly missed their intended target over the heart of Mikal Mahdi, and he cried out, groaned and gave labored breaths for more than a minute until his last gasp.

Third, today’s conservative Supreme Court is often indifferent to the horrors of the death penalty. From the 1980s through early 2000s, the court issued several decisions that effectively restricted its use, including bans on the death penalty for children and the intellectually disabled. Since 2020, with a more conservative majority, the court has gone in the other direction. The justices have made it harder for some defendants to introduce new evidence and have quickly, and often without explanation, rejected lower courts’ requests to pause executions. The court has prioritized expediency over justice and made it more likely that the government will kill innocent people.

Finally there is President Trump. He has been enthusiastic about the death penalty since he was a tabloid figure in the 1980s. Since entering politics a decade ago, he has suggested it was an appropriate punishment even for drug dealers. His support has led the Republican Party to embrace the practice again. Shortly after returning to office last year, he signed an executive order encouraging states to pursue capital charges.

Florida embodies the recent changes. Last year, it executed 19 people; the state’s previous high in the modern era had been eight, in 2014. Florida’s laws are unusual in giving the governor broad control over who on death row should be executed, and Gov. Ron DeSantis has used that authority. This year, he has already signed five death warrants.

Last year, Mr. DeSantis signed a law that mandates the death penalty for undocumented immigrants who commit capital crimes, despite its apparent violation of a 1987 Supreme Court ruling prohibiting automatic death sentences for any category of crime. What is the name of this new law? The TRUMP Act.

This editorial board has long argued for the abolition of the death penalty. It is a form of institutionalized vengeance that causes a society to mimic the behavior of its worst offenders. It does not deter crime more than life imprisonment, studies show. These are the reasons that so much of the world no longer executes people.

This week has brought a rare recent piece of good news in the United States. On Tuesday, Gov. Kay Ivey of Alabama commuted the death sentence of Charles Burton, 75, who was involved in a 1991 robbery but was no longer on the scene when one of his accomplices shot and killed a man. He was set to be executed on Thursday. Ms. Ivey made the right decision, but it should not require a wave of media attention and public outcry to secure last-minute justice in every flawed case.

In the absence of abolition, this country should at least take steps to reduce the worst injustices of the death penalty. The chances that an innocent person will be executed remain far too high. People on death row should have every opportunity to present evidence that calls into question their conviction.

In its current term, the Supreme Court is hearing a case involving protections against executing intellectually disabled Americans, who are at greater risk of falsely confessing and often struggle to defend themselves in court. We hope the justices uphold those protections. We also believe that the court should continue to prevent states from imposing the death penalty for crimes other than murder, a ruling it made in 2008 and that Mr. DeSantis has challenged.

Finally, states should repeal their secrecy laws and allow the public to confront the grim reality of executions. That so many states would rather hide this truth offers one reason for hope during a dark new period of executions in the United States. Even many of the politicians who support the death penalty seem to grasp that it is indefensible.

July 25, 2025 – By Matthew Stepka.

California should get rid of death row altogether and, instead, commute every death sentence in the state to life without the possibility of parole.

When Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a moratorium on executions in California in 2019, he called our state’s death penalty “by all measures, a failure.” Six years later, his estimation still holds true: Last year alone, California became home to the 200th death row exoneration in modern U.S. death penalty history, and a series of state and federal court cases peeled apart the state’s constant and flagrant racial bias in death sentencing.

As an executive and investor, I find it unthinkable that we continue to pour public resources into such a fundamentally broken system. If any company or product I evaluated had an error rate comparable to the death penalty — where for every eight people executed, one person has been exonerated — I would never invest.

Yet California takes the opposite approach, investing tens of millions of dollars each year, racking up enough death sentences to give us the largest death row in the Western Hemisphere, despite not executing anyone for almost two decades. A recent analysis by The Sacramento Bee estimates that California death penalty prosecutions in the last five years alone have led to court costs of more than $300 million, all while Newsom’s execution moratorium has been in place.

Because death penalty cases are more complex and can last more than four times longer than non-capital cases, this significantly increases legal expenses — from juror and attorney compensation to court personnel and other related costs. In fact, the Conference of Chief Justices estimated that individuals on California’s death row who require court-appointed counsel would cost the state more than $600 million.

All this expenditure is going toward a system that’s not only practically nonfunctional, it’s also unfit for its purpose. Despite death penalty proponents arguing its deterrent effect on crime, states with the death penalty consistently report higher murder rates than those without. In reality, capital punishment diverts valuable taxpayer resources from priorities like education, mental healthcare, child abuse prevention and infrastructure — areas vital for economic growth, societal well-being and, yes, public safety.

The message this sends to businesses and investors is troubling. California, now the world’s fourth largest economy, should be a beacon of innovation, efficiency and good governance. Instead, our commitment to a broken death penalty system suggests a preference for arbitrary decision-making over evidence-based policy, reckless spending over fiscal prudence and state-sanctioned retribution over fairness and justice.

It is contradictions like these that have led over 500 business leaders around the world, including myself, to sign a declaration advocating for the worldwide abolition of the death penalty.

To be sure, Newsom has already made great strides in this direction during his tenure, signing laws addressing racial bias in California’s death penalty and creating protections for people with intellectual disabilities. The governor has even taken steps to dismantle San Quentin’s death row by moving people with death sentences into general prison populations throughout the state.

But we can’t ignore the unfortunate reality that moratoriums can be undone, death rows can be repopulated and executions can resume. We’re seeing it happen right now: Earlier this spring, Louisiana undid a 15-year execution hiatus and restarted the machinery of death. South Carolina did the same last year. If California were to undergo a similar shift, many of the nearly 600 people on death row would instantly be at risk of execution, regardless of everything we know about the unreliability and bias of death sentencing in our state.

Newsom has the power to erase the risk of California someday backsliding into executions by taking steps to commute every death sentence in the state to life without the possibility of parole. Just weeks ago, local and national civil rights leaders gathered at the state Capitol to deliver a statement signed by nearly 200 organizations urging the governor to use his constitutional authority to do exactly that.

There is precedent for this: More than half a dozen governors have granted universal clemency to everyone sentenced to death in their states. And last December, then-President Joe Biden and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper collectively commuted over 50 sentences within their respective jurisdictions before leaving office.

Life sentences work: they cost less than executions, keep communities safe and prevent the killing of people who were unfairly and wrongfully sentenced.

Matthew Stepka is founder and managing partner at Machina Ventures, an investment firm focused on early stage, artificial intelligence and data science enabled companies. He is also a lecturer at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

January 22, 2026 – By CARRIE HARAMBASIC.

Capitol Weekly welcomes Opinions on California public policy or politics. Please read our guidelines for opinion pieces before submitting an Op-Ed. Submissions that do not adhere to our guidelines will not be considered for publication. 

OPINION – Lush Cosmetics has launched a campaign at our 35 California locations calling on Governor Gavin Newsom to commute all death sentences. From January 9 – 20, every store is featuring a window display and in-store materials to educate our customers on how to voice their support.

Some may wonder why a beauty company would take on an issue such as the death penalty. Those people don’t know Lush.

Since 2006, we have been campaigning online and in our shop windows, tackling human rights, environmental justice, and animal protection issues that most brands would find too controversial to take on. Campaigning is a core value of our business, and an integral part of the ethics that make Lush, Lush.

Our advocacy against capital punishment goes back almost a decade. In 2017, our Death ≠ Justice campaign raised awareness about the failures of the death penalty, especially the risk of executing innocent people. Through the sales of the limited edition 31 States Bath Bomb, named for the number of states which had the death penalty in place at the time, we raised $132,000 for national abolition efforts. We also released a documentary, Exonerated, about Kwame Ajamu, an innocent man who spent 28 years on Ohio’s death row for a crime he didn’t commit.

Understanding Lush’s history of standing against the death penalty makes it clear why we’re speaking out now. Governor Newsom, in his last year in office, has a historic opportunity to clear California’s death row — the largest death row in the U.S. – and cement the anti-death penalty legacy he has built throughout his years representing Californians. We firmly believe he cannot let this moment slip away.

It’s clear to us that the death penalty doesn’t address the root causes of crime and that we need systemic solutions across the justice system in order to create safer communities. Nationwide, the death penalty is deeply flawed. Evidence shows that executions frequently go wrong, causing immense and prolonged suffering, with Black people 220% more likely to suffer botched executions than white people. It is applied unfairly and in a racially biased manner, harmful to nearly everyone who is touched by it — including many victims’ families — rampant with wrongful convictions, and wasteful of precious taxpayer resources.

California’s death penalty is no exception. Since California reinstated the death penalty in 1977, eight Californians who had been sentenced to death have been exonerated and released from death row because they were innocent. All of them were men of color.

It has been consistently shown that the death penalty can be more expensive than life terms. By commuting all death sentences, Governor Newsom can make available hundreds of millions of dollars that could instead be invested in communities to build public safety strategies that meet their needs, solve scores of other cases, and provide critical services to care for the victims of violence and their families.

Thankfully, there has been significant progress towards abolition in California. Much of this is in part thanks to Governor Newsom, who issued a statewide moratorium on executions in 2019, subsequently dismantled California’s death chamber, and ultimately relocated its death row residents to general population units throughout the state.

These are applaudable acts of leadership — and Lush was among many business voices to publicly give our support — but this progress is not irreversible. The fact is as long as people remain under a death sentence, the threat of execution never fully disappears.

Now, by commuting every death sentence to life without the possibility of parole, Governor Newsom can ensure that no future administration can undo the progress already made, all while demonstrating the moral courage and political leadership needed to reinvigorate momentum towards ending the death penalty nationwide.

Lush is proud to join the growing coalition of activists and community leaders across the state calling on the Governor to act. We echo fellow business leaders like Sir Richard Branson and Matthew Stepka — members of the global Business Leaders Against the Death Penalty campaign, which Lush is proud to be a part of — who have already voiced their support.

But what matters most to us at Lush is that, with our state-wide campaign, we’re now joined by our customers across California — thousands of people who share our passion for building a better world. Together, we call on Governor Newsom to do the right thing: commute California death sentences and secure the legacy of fairness and justice already set in motion.

Carrie Harambasic is the Head of Business Development for Lush North America.

March 13, 2026 – By Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy.

For centuries, Catholics have prayed the Stations of the Cross throughout Lent. 

This solemn Christian season and particular prayer practice prepare our hearts and mind to journey with Christ through the desert and from his death to his Resurrection. 

But as we venerate the cross and walk the Via Crucis, do we pause to notice that the death we commemorate is a state-sanctioned death, not unlike the executions that are still carried out across the United States?

Reflecting on Christ’s own execution reminds us that this kind of violence and suffering did not end at Calvary but continues in the system of capital punishment today. Venerating the cross invites us to confront the violence we find in our time.

And we are compelled to act.

In this Lenten spirit, I urge California Gov. Gavin Newsom to commute the sentences of the more than 500 men and women sentenced to death in California, changing their sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Doing so would complete Newsom’s important efforts to dismantle the system of capital punishment in the state. Most importantly, such a courageous act would definitively save the lives of hundreds of individuals.

Every step of Christ’s Passion invites us, here and now, to reckon with the inequities and injustices built into our modern system of capital punishment. In California, which has held the largest death row in the country for decades, many of the men and women sentenced to die do not even have lawyers assigned to advocate for them. An inordinate number of those people on death row have intellectual disabilities, serious mental illness, or find themselves victims of a racially biased system. 

This immoral system also ensnares the innocent. As of February, 202 people — including eight in California — have been exonerated from America’s death rows. The death penalty is a fatally flawed system. And we believe that no matter the harm one has caused or suffered, every person deserves to be treated with human dignity.

Though needles and gurneys replace the nails and thorns of Jesus’ time, capital punishment today is no less cruel or barbaric than what we witness on Calvary.

It is true that Newsom holds some public policy positions that are at odds with church teaching. However, on the issue of the death penalty, his stance falls consistently in line with clear Catholic teaching. In fact, in 2018 Pope Francis revised the Catechism of the Catholic Church, asserting “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.” 

I recall vividly when Newsom, early in his tenure seven years ago, suspended the death penalty in California. On March 13, 2019, he signed an executive order which placed a welcome moratorium on state executions, and I remember seeing pictures in the newspaper of prison officials physically removing the death chamber. In 2022, Newsom helped to establish a process for death row inmates to receive relief from convictions or death sentences obtained “on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin.” And in 2023, Newsom dismantled the physical death row at San Quentin and began the process of reintegrating these individuals into general prison populations throughout the state. Today, the infamous prison which housed the largest death row in the country is a facility dedicated to restoration, healing and rehabilitation.

So long as these more than 500 death sentences exist, lives remain at risk and in the hands of a future administration. 

Newsom’s efforts to turn away from the death penalty have been praised and supported by the Catholic Church — including people in the pews; to national groups like my own organization, Catholic Mobilizing Network; to the Catholic bishops of California; and all the way up to the Vatican. 

Newsom’s actions on capital punishment have demonstrated how justice can be rooted in mercy and restoration instead of death and retribution. This is the restoration realized on Easter Sunday, triumphing over the vengeance on display on Good Friday.

Newsom has made strides in advancing this kind of restoration regarding the death penalty in the state of California. But so long as these more than 500 death sentences exist, lives remain at risk and in the hands of a future administration. 

Some may think California will never return to executions. We once thought that was true of the federal government, but we were proved wrong. While the California death chamber was dismantled, San Quentin continues to be legally designated as the site for executions. Its execution equipment may be considered a vestige of the past, but, in fact, it sits in the basement, waiting for the day it may be used. As long as people are sentenced to death in California, they remain at risk of execution because of changing political winds. 

In this Lenten season I wonder: Will Newsom tolerate this injustice as Pontius Pilate did and wash his hands of the issue, doing nothing more than what is required of him? Or will he take another courageous step and boldly act with executive authority to save the lives of hundreds of people? 

A choice lies before him. He can remain in the death of Good Friday, or he can continue the good work he’s already done, and take steps toward the restoration of Easter Sunday. On this Lenten journey, I pray that Newsom chooses the latter.

Jesus himself teaches us to embrace compassion, forgiveness, and love over vengeance. On the road to Calvary, Jesus shows us what it looks like to “love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). The final words he leaves us with are, “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.”

When we walk in Jesus’ footsteps in the Way of the Cross this Lent, we have the chance to learn from his example and do our part to contribute to the end of state-sanctioned death in our time.

Newsom has an opportunity to lead with mercy. I encourage him to act soon.

Feb 26, 2026 – By Greg Erlandson.

Back when California’s Folsom Prison was still executing prisoners, Johnny Cash serenaded the inmates there with a song about a man counting down the last 25 minutes of his life before hanging.

“Well I’m waitin’ for the pardon that’ll set me free

With 9 more minutes to go

But this ain’t the movies so forget about me

8 more minutes to go

With my feet on the trap and my head on the noose

5 more minutes to go

Won’t somebody come and cut me loose

Got 4 more minutes to go…”

“25 Minutes to Go,” by Johnny Cash

The prisoner Cash sang about is hung in the song’s last verse. No one cut him down. But there is a movement building in California to urge Gov. Gavin Newsom to do for California’s death row what President Joe Biden did for federal death row prisoners.

On Dec. 23, 2024, President Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 individuals on federal death row, reducing their sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Biden’s decision followed an appeal from Pope Francis and a concerted campaign by a number of anti-death penalty organizations, including the Catholic Mobilizing Network. [Full disclosure: I serve on the board of CMN.]

While death penalty sentences have been in decline, not so for executions themselves. 2025 saw the highest number of executions in more than a decade, with 47 men across 11 states, almost double the number executed in 2024.

The largest number of death row inmates is in California. Right now, there are an estimated 580 inmates (including 18 women) in California awaiting execution, although there has not been an execution in California in 20 years. The death penalty is still legal in California, but in 2019, Newsom signed an executive order pausing its practice.

But while the killings have been put on hold, hundreds of condemned men and women continue to languish on death row. Two-thirds have been on death row for more than 20 years, and a significant proportion of those have been on death row for 40 years. A disproportionate number are people of color (68%).

And while there has been a pause, the state continues to spend tens of millions of dollars annually maintaining the death penalty system and dealing with the many appeals that are necessarily part of the process.

California voters have supported the death penalty, though juries are increasingly reluctant to select the death penalty nationwide. Many of the arguments supporting the death penalty are spurious, and the cost of adjudicating death penalty cases over years and even decades far outweighs the cost of life sentences.

Aundré M. Herron, an attorney whose older brother was murdered, summed up the critique of the death penalty as state policy in an essay in the Sacramento Bee:

“It does not deter crime. It is not administered fairly or equitably. It does not bring closure. Instead, it forever ties the victim’s survivors and the entire society to the act of ritualistic revenge killing. It is costing us a fortune — fiscally and spiritually. It stands in the way of our ability to live up to our highest ideals regarding justice and the sanctity of life. It is one of our most colossal public-policy failures and should be abolished without delay.”

Pope Leo XIV, following in the footsteps of his three predecessors, has also spoken against the death penalty, most recently to a gathering of diplomats in January.

Referring to the just-concluded Jubilee of Hope, he said it was his desire that “the spirit of the Jubilee will permanently and structurally inspire the administration of justice, so that penalties are proportionate to the crimes committed, dignified conditions are guaranteed for prisoners, and above all, efforts are made to abolish the death penalty, a measure that destroys all hope of forgiveness and renewal.”

The solution, say anti-death penalty advocates, is for universal clemency. Commuting the death sentences does not mean prisoners go free. They remain incarcerated, but the costly and tortuous death penalty system would be ended.

A campaign to appeal to Newsom to enact universal clemency for California’s death row inmates has begun. In Los Angeles, the California county with the highest number of death penalty convictions, there will be a rally and interfaith prayer service at Loyola Marymount University on March 25, with a postcard campaign directed at Newsom.

This campaign is supported by the California Catholic Conference, the ACLU, the U.S. Campaign to End the Death Penalty (8th Amendment Project), and the Catholic Mobilizing Network, among many other organizations.

The abolition of the death penalty has been a priority for Church leaders, one that the U.S. bishops and the popes have spoken about consistently. In California, a significant step toward such an abolition could be taken this year by Newsom.

Greg Erlandson is the former president and editor-in-chief of Catholic News Service.

April 4, 2026 – By Bishop Oscar Cantú.

During Holy Week, as Christians recall how a public change of heart led to what we consider to be the ultimate sacrifice in a state-sanctioned execution, it is a fitting moment to reflect on how justice is carried out today.

California holds the largest death row population in the nation, with hundreds of men and women still living under a sentence of death. Yet our state has not carried out an execution in years and has already begun moving toward a more humane vision of justice.

In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom placed a moratorium on executions and dismantled the death chamber at the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center. Under his leadership, California has also begun implementing the California Model within its correctional system — an approach that prioritizes accountability, rehabilitation and restorative justice. These actions represent an important shift in how our state understands justice and public safety.

But one decisive step remains: Hundreds of individuals remain on death row. As long as their sentences stand, the machinery of capital punishment remains intact, waiting only for a future governor to potentially revive it.

We urge Newsom to commute all death sentences within his authority — those involving a single felony conviction — to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, and to petition the California Supreme Court to approve the commutation of the remaining sentences so that California’s progress toward a more just system cannot easily be reversed.

For more than four decades, the Catholic bishops of the United States have called for an end to the death penalty because it is incompatible with respect for the dignity of the human person. That belief flows from the Gospel itself: Every person is created in the image and likeness of God, and that dignity is never lost — even after the commission of serious crimes.

Today, there is growing recognition that the death penalty does not accomplish what justice truly requires. It does not restore victims. It does not rehabilitate offenders. It does not strengthen communities. Instead, it perpetuates a cycle of violence that leaves wounds unhealed.

The Catholic Church teaches clearly that the death penalty is no longer morally acceptable.

As St. John Paul II wrote, “modern society in fact has the means of effectively suppressing crime by rendering criminals harmless without definitively denying them the chance to reform” (Evangelium Vitae, 56).

Modern systems of detention can protect the public while preserving the possibility of redemption. For this reason, the church teaches that the death penalty is “inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person” (CCC, 2267).

This approach also opens the door to restorative justice — a path that aims to address the harm more fully. It brings victims, offenders and communities together to confront the wrongdoing, foster accountability and pursue healing whenever possible.

Just as Palm Sunday’s hosannas give way to the cries for crucifixion, yet lead to the promise of resurrection and new life, our justice system can also move beyond retribution towards mercy, healing and the opportunity for transformation.

Commuting death sentences does not mean ignoring the suffering caused by crime. Victims and their families carry burdens that often last a lifetime, and their pain must never be minimized. True justice requires that we listen to them, accompany them with compassion and ensure that their voices are heard. A just system must honor both accountability and the enduring needs of those who have been harmed.

Yet, across California, every Catholic diocese supports some form of restorative justice ministry. These ministries accompany victims and their families, support those who are incarcerated and help communities move forward. They reflect a conviction that justice is strongest when it protects society while also affirming the dignity of every person involved.

California has already begun moving in this direction. Under Newsom’s leadership, many individuals once held on death row have been transferred to other correctional facilities while remaining securely incarcerated.

But the work is not yet finished: Commuting the remaining death sentences would bring California’s policies into alignment with this vision and ensure that capital punishment cannot quietly return under a future administration.

Completing this step would ensure that California’s turn away from the death penalty becomes not a temporary policy, but a lasting legacy.

Bishop Oscar Cantú is bishop of the Diocese of San José and president of the California Catholic Conference.