Criminal Justice Legal Foundation Challenge Gov. Newsom’s Mass Commutation

The Criminal Justice Legal Foundation (CJLF) is leading a legal challenge to California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to commute all 548 death sentences to life without the possibility of parole (LWOP), with support from district attorneys and victims’ advocates.

In an open letter to Californians, Governor Gavin Newsom announced last week that he is commuting the death sentences of all 548 convicts on California’s death row, to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the Globe reported November 5, 2026.

“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 all of us,” Gov. Newsom said.

After running for governor on a vow to uphold California voters’ support of the death penalty, Gov. Newsom announced in March 2019, shortly after taking office, that he would grant reprieves for all death penalty murderers on California’s death row. He called the death penalty “ineffective, irreversible and immoral.”

It is notable that Gov. Newsom turned California into an “abortion sanctuary state,” and promotes abortion tourism, inviting tourists to visit California and get an abortion if their own state has abortion restrictions. Killing unborn babies is legal, but following through with the death penalty for convicted murderers is “immoral” and “incompatible with California’s values.”

Under the California Constitution, the governor can directly commute sentences for people with a single felony conviction. In California this is approximately 40% of the 548 convicts on California’s death row – about 166 cases. For the roughly 382 with multiple felony convictions, at least four of the seven California Supreme Court justices must approve. Newsom has asked the Court to act before his term ends in early January 2027; the request lapses otherwise.

The Criminal Justice Legal Foundation Challenge

On November 12, 2026, the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a nonprofit public-interest group focused on victims’ rights and public safety, held a press conference at the California State Capitol in Sacramento, joined by crime victims’ families, law enforcement groups, prosecutors, and other interested parties.

Former Sacramento County District Attorney, and CJLF CEO Anne Marie Schubert said Newsom’s unilateral override sidelines victims and undermines jury verdicts and court judgments. “One man, one governor, 548 death sentences.”

“One man, one governor, 548 death sentences,” Criminal Justice Legal Foundation CEO Anne Marie Schubert said Thursday as law enforcement leaders, advocates and elected officials held a joint press conference challenging Gov. Newsom’s mass commutation of death sentences. https://t.co/8SVeBqeNjC

— CBS Sacramento (@CBSSacramento) November 13, 2026

“The Governor is overriding the will of the voters and [the] juries and [the] judges,” Schubert said.

The CJLF says Newsom’s announcement disregards voter will, as Californians rejected death-penalty repeal measures, Prop 34 in 2012 and Prop 62 in 2016, while approving reforms, Prop 66, to expedite the process.

“Behind every one of these 548 sentences is a family: parents who buried a child, children who lost a mother, and officers’ families who were handed a folded flag,” Schubert said. “In 2019 this Governor promised them that no sentence would change. They were promised justice and given finality.  That was destroyed today. His letter talks about California values, where do these values stand when we ignore the rights of crime victims. Today he decided their voices don’t matter.”

Additionally, LWOP is not necessarily permanent, because legislatures can later change rules, as the California Legislature did.

The California Supreme Court is now positioned to review the multi-felony cases, and the legal challenges will test the scope of gubernatorial clemency, procedural requirements, and the finality of death sentences.

San Luis Obispo District Attorney Dan Dow told Gov. Newsom on X:

Before issuing blanket commutations for all 548 of California’s death sentences, including some of the worst of the worst murderers in our state’s history, you should read what Theodore Roosevelt wrote about the clemency power.

In his 1913 Autobiography, TR said there were certain crimes for which “requests for leniency merely made me angry.” He listed rape, the “white slave” traffic, wife murder, gross cruelty to women and children, and inducing abortion. When prominent men petitioned for leniency in such cases, he replied that he “extremely regretted that it was not in my power to increase the sentence,” then made the petitioners’ names public because he believed they “deserved public censure.”

That is the opposite of your choosing to treat every capital case the same with a single blanket act. California voters have repeatedly affirmed the death penalty for the worst of the worst.

Read Roosevelt’s full account, then explain why mass clemency for the state’s most heinous killers is the better course.

Waiting for your reply.

@CAgovernor @GavinNewsom: Before issuing blanket commutations for all 548 of California’s death sentences, including some of the worst of the worst murderers in our state’s history, you should read what Theodore Roosevelt wrote about the clemency power.

In his 1913 Autobiography, TR said there were certain crimes for which “requests for leniency merely made me angry.” He listed rape, the “white slave” traffic, wife murder, gross cruelty to women and children, and inducing abortion. When prominent men petitioned for leniency in such cases, he replied that he “extremely regretted that it was not in my power to increase the sentence,” then made the petitioners’ names public because he believed they “deserved public censure.”

That is the opposite of your choosing to treat every capital case the same with a single blanket act. California voters have repeatedly affirmed the death penalty for the worst of the worst.

Read Roosevelt’s full account, then explain why mass clemency for the state’s most heinous killers is the better course.

Waiting for your reply.

— Dan Dow (@dandow) November 10, 2026