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California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, is reportedly weighing the possibility of sparing the lives of the 563 inmates currently on death row in the Golden State.
Newsom held conversations with his top advisors last week, coinciding with the failed execution of Christa Pike in the state of Tennessee, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke to The New York Times.
California's inmates account for approximately one-quarter of the people facing capital punishment nationwide, according to data from the Death Penalty Information Center.
California formally maintains the death penalty, but its application has been stalled for two decades. The last execution took place in January 2006, when Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor.
Upon taking office, Newsom issued a moratorium on executions in March 2019, halted the process of implementing a new lethal injection protocol, and made it clear that although courts could continue to hand down death sentences, the state would not resume executions under his tenure.
In 2022, the Democrat began transferring inmates who remained on death row at San Quentin—California's oldest prison and home to some of the most infamous inmates over the years—to other prisons to be integrated into the general prison population.
[Publicidad]