*Donald Trump may not like it, but California Gov. Gavin Newsom couldn’t care less because he’s moving ahead with plans to put a moratorium on the death penalty in California. His action will spare the lives of more than 700 death-row inmates.
Newsom will sign an executive order today, Wednesday (03-13-19) granting reprieves to all 737 inmates awaiting executions.
Interestingly, Newsom’s action comes three years after California voters rejected an initiative to end the death penalty, instead passing a measure to speed up executions.
Newsom, newly elected to succeed Gov. Jerry Brown, says the death penalty system has discriminated against mentally ill defendants and people of color. In remarks he will deliver at his announcement/signing of the order, he goes on to point out that it has not made the state safer and has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars.
“Our death penalty system has been – by any measure – a failure,” Newsom plans to say. “The intentional killing of another person is wrong. And as governor, I will not oversee the execution of any individual.”
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Additionally, the Sacramento Bee Reports:
California has not executed anyone in more than a decade because of legal challenges to the state’s execution protocol. But executions for more than 20 inmates who have exhausted their appeals could have resumed if those challenges were cleared up, and Newsom has said he worried that it could happen soon.
Newsom has been a longtime opponent of the death penalty. While campaigning for a measure to repeal the death penalty in 2016, he told The Modesto Bee editorial board he would “be accountable to the will of the voters,” if he were elected governor.
“I would not get my personal opinions in the way of the public’s right to make a determination of where they want to take us” on the death penalty, he said.
The moratorium of course isn’t permanent. It will only be in place for the duration of Newsom’s time in office, the governor’s office said. After that, a future governor could decide to resume executions.
California is one of 31 states with capital punishment.
Now, as far as Trump is concerned, he is straight up hating on the California governor’s moratorium.
“Defying voters, the Governor of California will halt all death penalty executions of 737 stone cold killers,” Trump tweeted. “Friends and families of the always forgotten VICTIMS are not thrilled, and neither am I!”
