October 23, 2026
To the editor: I am writing now as I have written so many other times since my brother’s murder in 2003 to tell anyone who will listen that contrary to what is so often proclaimed, the death penalty does not heal murder victim family members (“A death sentence is too heavy a decision to be overturned lightly,” Oct. 21). The death penalty harms victims’ families, other innocent families and society at large.
The death penalty will not bring my brother back. The millions of dollars used to process capital crimes are wasted tax money that could be used to solve cold-case murders like my brother’s. Killers by the hundreds if not thousands are still on the street. Dangling a spectacle of retribution does nothing for public safety, crime victims or justice. The prospect of the state-sanctioned killings of more than 500 people in California is untenable.
We all know that many of these promised executions are extremely unlikely to ever occur, making this a false promise to victims.
In the years since my brother Bob’s murder in Washington state, I have worked actively as a crime victim against the death penalty. In 2023, I testified at legislative hearings in Olympia, Wash., in favor of ending the death penalty. Ultimately, the death penalty there was eliminated by Gov. Jay Inslee. Clemency is a step in the right direction.
I hope Gov. Gavin Newsom will take that step before he leaves office.
Judy Kerr, Albany, Calif.
To the editor: This op-ed doesn’t consider that the death penalty system itself is inherently cruel, discriminatory and irreversible. The death penalty is a violation of human rights, and no government should have the power to take a life, regardless of the crime.
State-sanctioned killing should not be done under the guise of justice. Taking a life will never bring another life back. The death penalty operates under the unfounded pretense that it makes us safer — it does not. Instead, it only perpetuates a cycle of violence.
About 75% of all countries have abolished this cruel punishment in law or practice. The U.S. is an outlier, and it’s time for it to catch up. By commuting death sentences in California, Gov. Newsom could lead the U.S on a path that finally breaks the long and brutal legacy of state-sanctioned violence and upholds human rights for all.
Gavrilah Wells, San Francisco
This writer is the state death penalty abolition coordinator for Amnesty International USA in California.
To the editor: California has spent approximately $6 billion on its death penalty system since 1978. In return, the state has carried out just 13 executions — and none since 2006. That is an extraordinary amount of money for a system that has accomplished so little and remains deeply flawed.
It is also deeply immoral. As a member of the clergy, I believe in the sacredness of life. We are all created in God’s image and the state should not be empowered to take people’s lives.
Gov. Newsom should commute the sentences of everyone on California’s death row and redirect the state’s resources toward programs that actually make communities safer: mental health services, effective violence prevention and support for victims and survivors.
More than 500 people remain on death row, and two-thirds have been there for more than 20 years. Dozens of these men and women have spent more than four decades awaiting execution. Meanwhile, California has struggled for years to provide adequate attorneys for people challenging their convictions and sentences.
This is not fiscal responsibility. It is not public safety. And it is not justice.
California has already demonstrated that it can protect the public without carrying out executions: No one has been executed here in nearly 21 years.
Newsom should acknowledge what the numbers make clear. The death penalty is an extraordinarily expensive government program that does not make Californians safer. Commuting these sentences would allow California to invest instead in the people and programs that do.
Rabbi Suzanne Singer, Riverside