Just two days after the midterm elections, Governor Gavin Newsom announced plans to commute the death sentences of 548 death-row murderers, rapists, and felons. Senate Republicans respond to this betrayal of victims’ families and California voters who repeatedly upheld the death penalty.
“Public safety and the needs of victims and their families must come first, yet Governor Newsom's decision sends a very different message,” said Senate Republican Leader Roger Niello (R-Fair Oaks). “Already in California, life without the possibility of parole has proven to be less than absolute. Sending a mass, sterile notification to all victims in a single notice demonstrates a profound disregard for the deeply personal pain each family has endured.”
Newsom said he would respect the will of the voters on the death penalty. Instead, he halted executions in 2019 and now plans to replace every existing death sentence with life without parole.
"Gavin Newsom is a ‘killer of justice,’” said Senator Suzette Martinez Valladares (R-Santa Clarita). “Think about 8-year-old Gabriel Fernandez, tortured for months and murdered by Isauro Aguirre. As a mother, I cannot imagine being told that the governor has decided to spare my child’s killer from the punishment a jury determined was deserved. This blanket decision puts convicted murderers ahead of the families who will carry that loss forever.”
Many commutations require a recommendation from four California Supreme Court justices before Newsom can finalize them.
BACKGROUND:
Randy Kraft - "Scorecard Killer” - murdered 16 people, potentially as many as 45 young men, targeting hitchhikers 18-25, strangling his victims after drugging and sexually assaulting them.
Charles Ng - Tortured, raped, and murdered at least 11 people in Calaveras County in the 1980s.
William Suff - "Riverside Prostitute Killer," "Lake Elsinore Killer" - Convicted of 12 brutal murders in Riverside County and abused his own children.
John Jacobson Jr. - "Yacht Killer" - lured the Hawkses family onto their boat off the California coast, tied them to the vessel's anchor, and threw them overboard before grabbing a beer from the fridge and starting to fish.
Gerald Parker - “Bedroom Basher” - Raped and murdered five women and killed the unborn baby of a sixth woman. Later charged with another rape of a 14-year-old girl.
David Carpenter - “The Trailside Killer” - Stalked and shot dead at least 10 people on hiking trails in parks near San Francisco.
Isauro Aguirre - Tortured for months and murdered 8-year-old Gabriel Fernandez.