CALIFORNIA — Gov. Gavin Newsom's decision to replace California's 548 death sentences with life imprisonment without parole would spare Richard Allen Davis, whose murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaas helped reshape California's sentencing laws.
And it would spare Randy Kraft, the "Scorecard Killer" (or Freeway Killer) convicted of torturing and murdering 16 boys and men, but believed to have killed dozens more across San Diego, Orange and Los Angeles counties.
And it would spare Alejandro Avila, who shocked the nation when he kidnapped 5-year-old Samantha Runnion as she played in front of her home in Stanton in 2002, raping and murdering her.
It would spare Luis Bracamontes, who shot and killed a sheriff's deputy and a detective in a Sacramento rampage, and Roger Hoan Brady, who killed a Manhattan Beach Police Officer during a traffic stop.
It would spare others convicted of killing police and many more serial killers.
It would also reprieve many on death row who have maintained their innocence and whose cases have been championed by the Innocence Project, including Scott Peterson and Kevin Cooper, who was convicted of murdering a family in Chino Hills.
Newsom announced his clemency decision Nov. 5, citing his moral opposition to capital punishment. In an open letter to Californians, he argued that executions undermine justice and human decency.
"State-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California's values," he wrote.
In doing so, he garnered praise from religious and human rights groups and condemnation from victims advocates and district attorneys in nearly every county.
Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, executive director of Catholic Mobilizing Network, told the National Catholic Register the decision was "an incredibly encouraging and historic witness for life and human dignity…the largest commutation in world history."
In contrast , backlash from law enforcement was immediate. The California District Attorneys Association urged Newsom to reject blanket commutations in an Oct. 23 statement, arguing that each case and victims' family deserved individual consideration.
After his Nov. 5 announcement, the association condemned the decision and said prosecutors and victims' families had received no meaningful advance notice or opportunity to weigh in.
"Clemency is an extraordinary power intended to provide relief when the facts and circumstances of an individual case justify it," the district attorney association's chief executive officer, Greg Totten, said.
"It was never intended to serve as a substitute for the legislative process or to allow one elected official to effectively nullify hundreds of jury verdicts simply because he disagrees with the law."
More than 500 other names appear on California's condemned inmate list, but Polly Klaas' murder helped reshape the state's sentencing laws, driving support for harsher penalties for repeat offenders.
Davis was on parole when kidnapped Polly Klaas at knifepoint from a slumber party in Petaluma on Oct. 1, 1993, and murdered her.
Her murder intensified California's tough-on-crime politics, fueling demands to keep repeat offenders behind bars longer. Davis' violent criminal history and parole status helped build support for the Three Strikes law in 1994.
Lawmakers enacted the sentencing measure, and voters approved a parallel initiative.
The law generally doubled prison terms for a new felony after one serious or violent felony conviction and imposed at least 25 years to life after two qualifying convictions, even when the new felony was nonviolent.
Voters narrowed the law in 2012, generally requiring a serious or violent third offense for a life sentence, with exceptions.
But Californians also rejected efforts to abolish the death penalty in 2012 and 2016 and approved Proposition 66 in 2016 to expedite death penalty appeals. Newsom imposed a moratorium on executions in 2019.
More than half the proposed sentence reductions require California Supreme Court approval because the prisoners have multiple felony convictions. And there are other caveats.
Polly's stepsister, Jess Nichol, supported the commutations after meeting with Newsom in October. Nichol once supported executing Allen but now believes resources that help survivors heal offer more than capital punishment.
While some members of Polly's family questioned whether harsher punishment could deliver justice or help them heal, others joined victims' families and law enforcement officials across California in condemning the proposal.
Polly's father, Marc Klaas, told The New York Times that the decision revived painful emotions and left him feeling "raw and angry."
Death penalty opponents planned a national advertising campaign praising the decision, the newspaper reported.
Even before Newsom's released the public letter on Thursday, law enforcement leaders across the state, including the California District Attorneys Association, urged the governor to reject blanket commutations.
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer condemned the commutations as "mercy for the wolves," saying they inflicted cruelty on victims and that some crimes warrant the death penalty.
The California District Attorneys Association urged Newsom to reject blanket commutations in an Oct. 23 statement, arguing that each case and victims' family deserved individual consideration.
After his Nov. 5 announcement, the association condemned the decision to commute all 548 death sentences, saying the action disregards jury decisions, victims' rights, and voters' repeated rejection of efforts to abolish capital punishment.
"With the stroke of a pen, Governor Newsom has disregarded the decisions of hundreds of jurors and judges, and the anguish of families who lost loved ones to the worst crimes imaginable," Jeannine Pacioni, Monterey County's district attorney and president of the association.
The association criticized Newsom in particular for giving prosecutors and victims' families no meaningful advance notice or opportunity to respond, arguing that clemency should address extraordinary circumstances in individual cases.
"They deserved more than learning through a public announcement that the sentences imposed on their loved ones' killers were being overturned," Totten, also former district attorney for California's eastern district, added.
Sonoma County District Attorney Carla Rodriguez called the unilateral decision to erase more than 500 death sentences inappropriate.
The timing, two days after the midterm elections, "leaves a very bad taste in my mouth," she said.
Although California's Constitution allows clemency in certain circumstances, she said, that authority should not serve political interests.
The decision struck close to home in Sonoma County, where the victims included Polly Klaas as well as Deputy Frank Trejo, whom Robert Walter Scully murdered in the line of duty in 1995, five days after leaving prison.
Sonoma County Sheriff Eddie Engram condemned Newsom's decision, saying it would undermine confidence in the courts and renew victims' families' pain.
Engram said the California State Sheriffs' Association urged Newsom to reject blanket commutations. "Our pleas apparently went unheard," he said.
Contra Costa County Sheriff David Livingston accused Newsom of disregarding voters and imposing his personal preferences.
"When I was president of the California State Sheriffs' Association, he called me into his office to tell me he was taking away the legal means to carry out these sentences by quietly removing the lethal injection chamber itself from San Quentin," Livingston said.
"That was step one. Now he has implemented step two — mass commutations for the worst-of-the-worst offenders."
Other governors have granted broad clemency, but California's numbers surpass earlier actions. According to the Times article, the previous largest mass commutation in modern American history came in 2003, when Illinois Gov. George Ryan commuted death sentences for 167 prisoners.
The cases now on CDCR's condemned inmate list span California, sometimes connecting communities to sentencing courtrooms hundreds of miles from the crimes.
Cary Stayner's 1999 murders of three Yosemite tourists and nature guide Joie Armstrong spread fear through the region. Investigators initially ruled out the motel handyman before arresting him after Armstrong's killing. He received a death sentence for the tourists' murders and a separate federal life sentence for Armstrong's murder.
His death penalty trial took place in Santa Clara County. The case moved from Mariposa County because of pretrial publicity.
Joseph Naso murdered four women whose bodies authorities found in Marin, Contra Costa, and Yuba counties between 1977 and 1994. A Marin County judge sentenced him in 2013, imposing death sentences for the murders of Carmen Colon, Pamela Parsons, and Tracy Tafoya, and a life sentence for the murder of Roxene Roggasch.
Charles Ng's case centered on a property in Wilseyville, Calaveras County. Ng and Leonard Lake committed 11 murders during a Northern California killing spree in 1984 and 1985. An Orange County court sentenced Ng to death in 1999.
On the Central Coast, Rex Krebs kidnapped, raped, and murdered Rachel Newhouse and Aundria Crawford in San Luis Obispo County in 1998 and 1999. A court in that county sentenced him to death in 2001.
Southern California cases include Randy Kraft, whom a jury convicted of murdering 16 men. An Orange County court sentenced him to death in 1989. Investigators connected his crimes to victims whose bodies were discarded along freeways.
Daniel Wozniak murdered Samuel "Sam" Herr in Los Alamitos for money in 2010, then murdered Juri "Julie" Kibuishi in Costa Mesa to frame Herr and divert investigators. An Orange County court sentenced him to death in 2016.
Chester Turner received death sentences in Los Angeles County in 2007 and 2014 for murdering 14 women. Separate trials covered 10 murders and four additional killings.
In San Diego County, David Westerfield kidnapped and murdered his 7-year-old neighbor, Danielle van Dam, in 2002. A judge sentenced him to death in 2003.
Violent crimes can inflict generational trauma, Rodriguez said, and victims' families may never lose their fear that an offender could gain release and harm them again.
Rodriguez said she hopes California's next governor shows greater respect for crime victims and recognizes that decisions carry consequences for the people affected.
Protecting victims' rights and holding criminals accountable remain the goals, she said.
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