In-Depth Examination of California's Death Penalty

Tony Harvey
Jun 30
5 min read

Updated: Jul 1

Civil Rights Leaders, Attorneys Urge Gov. Gavin Newsom To Commute Death Row Sentences

🏛⚖️🏛

PA DIGITALIZED Law and Order EDITORIALS🎙

On June 26, 2025, Oakland-based civil rights attorney Lisa Holder speaks at the State Capitol, asking Gov. Gavin Newsom to commute the death penalty sentences. PA photo by Antonio Ray Harvey.

PUBLIC RECORD

– 30 –

🎥🎞🎬📽🎙✍️

T. ‌Ray‌ ‌Harvey‌ ‌|‌ Public Information Officer

🎙✍️📰🗞📰✍🎙

“Who is on death row and by the process of how they get there is plagued with racial discrimination, injustice, and constitutional failures,” said Mendoza.”

– Michael Mendoza, LatinoJustice Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF)

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Sacramento, Calif. — California and national civil rights leaders called on Gov. Gavin Newsom to use his constitutional authority to commute the death sentences of all 574 individuals currently on death row in the state.

The contingent gathered at the California State Capitol on June 26 to deliver a statement from nearly 200 organizations asking Newsom to grant “universal clemency” to every “individual on death row in California without delay,” the document stated.

California has the largest death row in the country. Oakland-based civil rights attorney Lisa Holder, for Equal Justice Society, said that 34% of the inmates on death row in California are Black.

“I’m here to say ‘wake up.’ Snap out of it. These disparities are egregious,” Holder said. “The racial gaps and outcomes should make you feel outraged. State killing under any circumstances is unacceptable in a civilized society.”

According to the California Department of

Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), as of June 9, 191 death row inmates are Black while 181 are their White counterparts (29.4%). Latinos make up 162 condemned inmates (27%).

Holder was a member of the California Reparations Task Force, established in 2020. It was a state-appointed body tasked with studying and developing proposals for reparations for African Americans. Her findings on the status of death row in the state were derived from the two-year study.

Additional speakers at the Capitol included Dorothy Ehrlich, former Deputy Executive Director of ACLU National; Eric Harris, Disability Rights California; and Michael Mendoza, LatinoJustice Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF).

Pastor Mike McBride, LIVE FREE; Vincent Pan, Chinese for Affirmative Action; Robert Rooks, One for Justice; Imani Rupert-Gordon, National Center for LGBTQ Rights; and Morgan Zamora, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and the Clemency California coalition gathered at the West Steps of the State Capitol to launch a formal campaign.

The request from the leaders arrives as the California Supreme Court considers a lawsuit brought by multiple civil rights organizations alleging the state’s death penalty statute is applied in a racially discriminatory manner, and therefore unconstitutional under the Equal Protection guarantees of the California Constitution.

The petition to the state’s Supreme Court was filed by the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), the American Civil Liberties Union Capital Punishment Project (ACLU CPP), and the ACLU of Northern California (ACLU NorCal), among others.

Robert Rooks, CEO of One for Justice, shared a story about a man who was put to death in Georgia, whom he thinks may have been innocent. Rooks is also advocating for 574 condemned inmates to have their sentences commuted by Gov. Gavin Newsom. CBM photo by Antonio Ray Harvey.

“Who is on death row and by the process of how they get there is plagued with racial discrimination, injustice, and constitutional failures,” said Mendoza, the Criminal Justice Director for LatinoJustice PRLDEF. “Honestly, this is not a crisis of policy, but this is a crisis of conscience.”

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the last execution in California was on Jan. 17, 2006, when Clarence Ray Allen was executed by lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison, where all executions take place. Allen was 76 years old at the time he was put to death.

The last Black man executed in California was Stanley Tookie Williams on Dec. 13, 2005, when Arnold Schwarzegger was governor. He was a co-founder of the Crips gang and was executed by lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison. Williams had been on death row at the prison in the north San Francisco Bay since April 20, 1981.

“Over two-thirds of the countries in the world have abolished the death penalty,” Holder said. “It’s time to show moral courage that befits your position as the leader of nations.”

Under Newsom’s plan, the CDCR reported that San Quentin's death row has been dismantled, and condemned inmates have been transferred to other maximum-security prisons throughout the state.

The women on condemned status are housed at Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, California. As of March 19 of this year, 21 women on death row at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla were granted the option to relocate to less restrictive housing within the Central Valley prison.

On March 19, 2019, Newsom declared a moratorium on the death penalty, halting all executions in the state through an executive order. The order includes the repeal of California’s lethal injection protocol and the closing the execution chamber at San Quentin State Prison.

The order does not for the call for commuting or releasing of any individual from prison, and the moratorium stays intact until Newsom finishes out his term as governor of the state.

“Our death penalty system has been, by all measures, a failure. It has discriminated against defendants who are mentally ill, black and brown, or can’t afford expensive legal representation,” Newsom stated in March 2019. “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’s irreversible and irreparable in the event of human error.”

According to the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO), it costs approximately $133,00 more per year to house an inmate with a death row conviction compared to those in the general prison population. This is due to the increased security measures, specialized facilities, and more staffing required for death row inmates.

The cost also covers Medical care, Mental health care, Pharmaceuticals, Dental care, education, in-prison programs, and administrative fees. The Governor’s January budget proposed a total of about $13.9 billion to operate CDCR in 2025‑26, mostly from the General Fund, according to LAO.

Since 1977, when executions resumed in the country, California has exonerated eight individuals who were on death row, said Ehrlich, who has worked for the ACLU on the state and national level.

In the last 48 years, the state has spent $5 billion on death row inmates, Ehrlich told PUBLICITY AGENTS. A lot of the funding goes to the inmates’ defense fund and attorneys who represent them.

In California, a death row inmate can file a “writ of habeas corpus” petition to challenge the legality of his or her imprisonment. The tool allows the inmate to determine in court whether their conviction and incarceration are flawed, according to the Judicial Branch of California.

“Today, we ask that California end its wasteful spending on the death penalty and instead invest in effective violence prevention and real solutions to promote public safety,” Erhlich said. “The death penalty is a monstrous, costly experiment."