California governor commutes sentences of more than 500 people on death row

California Governor Gavin Newsom has announced that he will commute the sentences of all 548 people on death row in the state, the largest mass clemency in United States history. The announcement on Thursday effectively clears out California’s death row , although the state has not executed a prisoner for 20 years. Those on death row will instead serve life sentences without the possibility of parole.

“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,” Newsom said in an open letter. A Pew Research Center poll released in August found that 66 percent of Americans supported the punishment for those convicted of murder. Roughly 73 percent, however, acknowledged there was a risk of executing an innocent person.

Because death penalty cases often involve long and arduous legal appeals, many of those on death row are never executed.