USA - ACLU

USA - California. ACLU Joins Calls to Gov. Newsom to Commute All Death Sentences

June 26, 2025:

June 26, 2025 - California. ACLU Joins Calls to Gov. Newsom to Commute All Death Sentences as State Supreme Court Reviews Constitutional Challenge

The American Civil Liberties Union joined the growing chorus of calls to Gov. Newsom to commute all death sentences on California’s death row to life without parole at a press conference in Sacramento this morning hosted by the California Anti-Death Penalty Coalition.

The call for commutations comes as the California Supreme Court considers a landmark petition filed in April 2024 by the ACLU, the ACLU of Northern California, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), Wilmer Hale, and the Office of the State Public Defender (OSPD) challenging the state’s death penalty statute as racially discriminatory and unconstitutional under the Equal Protection guarantees of the California Constitution.

The petition demonstrates that racial disparities in California’s implementation of the death penalty are persistent, pervasive, and well documented. Black people are about 5 times more likely to be sentenced to death when compared to similarly situated non-Black defendants, while Latino people are at least 3 times more likely to be sentenced to death.

“The evidence makes it abundantly clear that racial inequality infects every aspect of California’s death penalty system,” said Claudia Van Wyk, senior counsel at the ACLU’s Capital Punishment Project. “Gov. Newsom recognized this when he imposed his moratorium on executions, but systemic failures of this magnitude require more than a temporary pause. While the courts deliberate our legal challenge, executive clemency offers an immediate remedy. The governor must finish what he started and commute every death sentence.”

This week, the ACLU released a report on discrimination in capital jury selection citing studies in states across the country, including California. Studies of capital trials in California find that Black prospective jurors and women are disproportionately excluded and selected jurors are skewed from the eligible juror population, resulting in juries are less likely to deliberate and more likely to convict.

“As the lawsuit we filed in 2024 makes clear, the stark racial disparities in the application of California’s death-penalty system violate equal protection,” said Neil Sawhney, director of appellate advocacy at the ACLU of Northern California. “While we are hopeful that the California Supreme Court will rule in our favor, the governor can immediately remedy this unconstitutional discrimination through executive clemency.”

With 570 people on death row, California has the largest death row in the nation and one of the largest in the world. 2/3 of those sentenced have been on death row for more than 20 years, with dozens having spent more than 40 years awaiting execution.

https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-joins-calls-to-gov-newsom-to-commute-all-death-sentences-as-state-supreme-court-reviews-constitutional-challenge