President Donald Trump on Saturday blasted California Governor Gavin Newsom’s early November decision to commute the death penalty sentences of all 548 criminals on the state's death row.
“Gavin Newscum’s halting the Death Penalty for all 563 California Death Row inmates, some of the worst cold blooded murderers to have ever lived on the face of the Earth, is a disaster for Justice in America. Many of these names, people who have killed, over and over again, can’t believe their luck in having a Governor so incompetent and insensitive that he would not let the long and winding legal system prevail. The family members of those who were so viciously killed are, rightfully, devastated. Hopefully this decision will be overturned!”
The president further remarked that some of the criminals whose sentences were commuted by Newsom made Hannibal Lecter “look like a nice guy.”
When Gov. Newsom announced his decision in a lengthy public letter, he noted that many people — including the families of victims — would disagree with him, but that he believed the death penalty was “incompatible with California’s values.”
“I take this action because I firmly believe that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California's values, undermines the foundations of our legal system, and diminishes each of us. I know we cannot execute people in our imperfect legal system and remain true to our core values, first among them justice and human decency… My action formalized the de facto moratorium on executions in place since 2006, the last year California executed anyone.”
Newsom acknowledged that “California voters had voted to keep the death penalty on the books,” that he cannot repeal the death penalty altogether, and that the cases of death row inmates who were convicted of more than two felonies must be reviewed by California’s Supreme Court.
You can read his full letter here.
To be fair to Gavin Newsom, the justice system isn’t perfect and a number of individuals sentenced to death in the United States have been later exonerated after it was found that they didn’t, in fact, commit the crime of which they were accused or that their trial was compromised in some way.
That’s not an indictment of the death penalty itself, but of corrupt and/or negligent law enforcement and tainted trial processes.
That said, here are just three of the death row inmates whose sentences Newsom just commuted:
- Randy Kraft, also known as the “Scorecard Killer,” was sentenced to death after being convicted of the murders of 16 men in the 70s and 80s who he sexually assaulted and tortured.
- Richard Allen Davis was convicted of the kidnapping and murder of a 12-year-old girl in 1993. He’d been out on parole for a kidnapping when he committed the murder.
- Marcus Wesson was convicted of nine counts of first degree murder after nine of his children were shot through the eye in 2004. He was also convicted of sexual abuse of his nieces and daughters.
Additionally, there is some irony in Newsom’s claim that the death penalty is contrary to California’s “values,” when the state not only protects so-called abortion rights, but allows abortion for any reason up to 24 to 26 weeks. Abortion is also allowed in California “at any time to protect your life or health,” per the state of California’s own website.