CA Clemency

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.

JANUARY 16, 2026 —

On Jan. 17, 2006, California carried out what would turn out to be the last execution in the Golden State in the next two decades. Clarence Ray Allen was put to death at San Quentin State Prison, having been convicted of three counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances for a crime committed in 1980.

At the time of his crimes, the murder rate in California was at or near an all-time high. There were approximately 14.5 homicides per 100,000 people in the state.

Like many places, California had been in the grip of a suffocating and punitive tough-on-crime politics.

Things are different today. California has learned to live without executions, and it is better off because of it.

Its governor, Gavin Newsom, made his state’s execution pause official when he declared a formal moratorium in 2019. He has led the way in asking citizens of his state to face the death penalty’s manifold injustices….

SEPTEMBER 11, 2025 – SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. —

Gov. Gavin Newsom is a fervent opponent of the death penalty who has halted executions in the state since taking office in 2019 and dismantled Death Row at San Quentin State Prison, moving hundreds of condemned inmates to other prisons. He is also a possible Democratic candidate for president in a nation that, while sharply divided over capital punishment, often rejects candidates who can be labeled soft on crime.

So how will Newsom respond to pleas by other death penalty foes, including speakers at a San Francisco event Thursday led by the renowned Sister Helen Prejean, to commute all 581 death sentences in California to life in prison?

Newsom isn’t saying….