The death penalty is under assault in California. Despite repeated efforts to eliminate the death penalty via the initiative process, the public stands firmly in favor of executing death row inmates. However, in 2019, California’s Governor Gavin Newsom made the unilateral decision to declare a death penalty moratorium through the end of his term. He has since dismantled the death chamber, and moved California’s death row inmates from their secure location at San Quentin prison to various institutions throughout the state. 

My daughter Polly’s killer used to reside on California’s death row.

On March 13, 2019, at Governor Newsom’s request, I drove 90-miles to the Capitol for a meeting on crime victim equity.

Before the meeting ended the Governor informed me, and the others present, that he was going to declare a death penalty moratorium that would extend through the end of his term.

This, even though candidate Newsom announced that he would follow the death penalty law and the will of the people, who have historically supported California’s death penalty.

I drove home from the Capitol pinballing between rage and bewilderment.

“Who does that? Who asks the father of a murdered child to drive an hour and a half to tell him that he gave the gift of life to her rapist and killer?”

Among other sketchy and misleading talking points, the Governor justified the moratorium on his “Reluctance to execute hundreds and hundreds of human beings, knowing that as many as 30-death row inmates are innocent.”

Nobody ever suggested that he would have to carry out daily executions, and even his predecessor, who opposes the death penalty, stated definitively that “There are no innocent inmates on California’s death row.”

Let’s be clear: California’s condemned inmates have murdered more than 1,000 people, including 229 children and 43 police officers.

They are mass shooters, spree killers, cop killers and serial killers.

They are psychopaths and sadists who rape, torture, and murder their victims: even little girls!

By The Numbers:

• During 2021, the number of prisoners under sentence of death declined for the 21st consecutive year.
• A total of 16 prisoners were received under sentence of death in 2021, one more than was reported in 2020.
• Twenty states and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) removed a total of 84 prisoners from under sentence of death by means other than execution in 2021.
• Among jurisdictions with prisoners under sentence of death at yearend 2021, 19 states and the BOP reported a decrease in the number of prisoners held under sentence of death, 8 states reported no change, and no states reported an increase in the number of prisoners held under sentence of death. Four states held no prisoners under sentence of death during 2021.

• A series of empirical studies have clearly shown that when executions in the USA increase, murders decrease, and when executions decrease, murders increase. Learn more

• Don’t believe what they say about the death row exoneration list. Learn more

• If you think California is executing innocent men follow this link and learn the truth.  Learn more

• Death penalty opponents want you to believe that California has spent $5-billion to execute 13 death row inmates. That is simply not true! Learn more

•  The ultimate irony is that death penalty abolitionists crave the execution of an innocent man so that their indignation can run amok, while those who favor the death penalty pray that an innocent is never executed so that the fragile system of ultimate justice can be preserved. Learn more