{"id":136359,"date":"2026-01-16T16:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T16:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/136359\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T16:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T16:24:10","slug":"gavin-newsom-has-the-chance-to-make-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/136359\/","title":{"rendered":"Gavin Newsom has the chance to make history."},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for the Slatest<\/a> to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.<\/p>\n

On Jan. 17, 2006, California carried out<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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

Like many places, California had been in the grip<\/a> of a suffocating and punitive tough-on-crime politics.<\/p>\n

Things are different today. California has learned to live without executions, and it is better off because of it.<\/p>\n

Its governor, Gavin Newsom, made his state\u2019s execution pause official when he declared<\/a> a formal moratorium in 2019. He has led the way in asking citizens of his state to face the death penalty\u2019s manifold injustices.<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s death penalty system, Newsom says<\/a>, \u201chas been, by all measures, a failure. It has discriminated against defendants who are mentally ill, black and brown\u2026 It has provided no public safety benefit or value as a deterrent. It has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars. Most of all, the death penalty is absolute. It\u2019s irreversible and irreparable in the event of human error.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also voiced strong opposition<\/a> when, during the first Trump presidency, the administration resumed federal executions. But the governor needs to go further: To cement the status of the death penalty as a relic in the Golden State, Newsom should issue a wholesale commutation of the death sentences of the more than 500 people who could face execution if a Republican wins the governorship in 2026.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern
\n The Supreme Court \u201cRule for the Ages\u201d That Enabled Renee Good\u2019s Killing
\n Read More\n <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Two-thirds of these<\/a>\u00a0inmates have been on California\u2019s death row for more than 20 years, and dozens of individuals have been there for more than 40 years.<\/p>\n

If Newsom removes the possibility that they would ever face execution, he will deliver the kind of decisive blow against capital punishment that will reverberate across the whole country.<\/p>\n

The occasion of the 20th anniversary of his state\u2019s last execution would be a good time to take that step.<\/p>\n

But whether he does so or not, one thing that we can learn from California is that stopping executions does not lead to a spike in homicide rates. In fact, after two decades without an execution, homicide rates in that state are at historic lows<\/a>. In 2024, the rate<\/a> was, according to the state\u2019s Department of Justice, 4.3 killings per 100,000 people\u2014far below what it was in 2006. It fell again<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n

As Newsom put it<\/a> on Jan. 8, in his State of the State address:<\/p>\n

The last time homicides were this low in Oakland, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was visiting Joan Baez at Santa Rita Jail to commend her on her recent arrest in protest of the Vietnam draft. Killings haven\u2019t been so rare in San Francisco since superstar Marilyn Monroe wed baseball legend Joe DiMaggio at City Hall. And violent deaths in the city of Los Angeles fell to rates not seen since the Beatles played Dodgers Stadium, their penultimate public show.<\/p>\n

And just for a little perspective, in 2025 Florida carried out nearly\u00a0half of all executions<\/a>\u00a0in the United States, and California\u2019s \u00a0homicide rate was <\/a>still lower than Florida\u2019s.<\/p>\n

The experience in California confirms what many scholars have found. The death penalty is not an effective deterrent and does not make us any safer.<\/p>\n

A study of the deterrent effect of the death penalty, published one year before Allen\u2019s execution, offers a good example<\/a> of their findings. Emory University law professor Joanna Shepherd examined 27 states \u201cwhere at least one execution occurred during the sample period.\u201d Executions, she found, \u201cdeter murder in only six states.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition, it turned out that:<\/p>\n

capital punishment \u2026 actually increases murder in thirteen states, more than twice as many as experience deterrence. In eight states, capital punishment has no effect on the murder rate.<\/p>\n

Shepherd concluded that \u201cexecutions have a deterrent effect in only twenty-two percent of states. In contrast, executions induce additional murders in forty-eight percent of states.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is true that we cannot say that California\u2019s pause on executions caused its homicide rates to fall. But what we can say is that calling a halt to executions has not made Californians less safe.<\/p>\n

Of course, in California the death penalty remains on the books, and some of the prosecutors in the state continue to seek the death penalty. It still pays an extraordinarily high cost in taxpayer dollars for doing so.<\/p>\n

Research reported in 2010 showed that California taxpayers have spent\u00a0more than $4 billion<\/a>\u00a0on the death penalty since it was reinstated in 1977.\u00a0Today, the state spends<\/a> more than $100 million on death penalty litigation. Over 20 years, that amounts to $2 billion.<\/p>\n

And California is not alone among states<\/a> with the death penalty on the books that have not executed anyone in five, 10, or more years. What happens in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Montana, and Kansas, which I call \u201cdeath penalty swing states,\u201d will go a long way in determining the fate of capital punishment in this country.<\/p>\n

California can set an example for them to follow. That\u2019s why the 20th anniversary of its last execution and any decision Newsom might make about clemency are so important.<\/p>\n

As he considers what to do, he might examine what other governors have done in the past.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court Just Decided a Major Issue in Cases Like Renee Good\u2019s Shooting\u2014and Not How You Might Expect
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Key to the Birthright Citizenship Case Could Be These Long-Forgotten Supreme Court Precedents
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

In the year that California executed Clarence Ray Allen, no governor commuted<\/a> the sentence or pardoned anyone on death row. Since then, chief executives in such death penalty hot spots as Oklahoma, Georgia, and Texas have exercised their clemency power to spare<\/a> the lives of people in their state who were condemned to death.<\/p>\n

Newsom has the opportunity not only to join them, but to go one step further by issuing the largest mass death penalty clemency in American history.<\/a> Despite the length of time that his state has gone without an execution, that will not be an easy choice.<\/p>\n

However, as he explained in his State of the State address, \u201cThe story of California has never been the story of ease. It has been the story of effort, strengthened by trial and enlarged by the people who refuse to give up on one another.\u201d<\/p>\n

Twenty years after Clarence Allen\u2019s death, Newsom has the chance to add an important chapter to that story and show that his state never gives up even on those who have been condemned to die.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sign up for Slate’s evening newsletter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,47515,36103,69453],"class_list":{"0":"post-136359","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news","11":"tag-death-penalty","12":"tag-jurisprudence","13":"tag-slate-plus"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}