CA Voters Said, Speed Up Executions; Newsom Said,

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday that, despite guarantees he made to voters when operating for the workplace in 2018, he is commuting the death sentences of every single one of the 548 convicted murderers on California’s death row, leaving them sentenced to life in prison without the likelihood of parole.

Back in 2016, California voters overwhelmingly opposed a poll initiative that would have abolished the death penalty in the state, and accepted a separate poll initiative that would pace up the method. A campaigning Newsom said he would respect the voters’ needs despite his personal opposition to the death penalty, then promptly declared a moratorium once he was in workplace.

The murderers he is permitting to continue to draw breath, to benefit from the little issues in life, particularly the new country club-type quarters he and the First Partner have reworked the previous death row and execution chambers at San Quentin into, are actually the worst of the worst.

In some form of bizarre irony, in February of this 12 months Newsom held a ribbon cutting at The Learning Center at San Quentin.

Here are a few of the monsters who’ll get to benefit from the Scandinavian-inspired rehabilitation middle.

David Westerfield, who killed Danielle van Dam in 2002.

I’ve been ready 24 years for my neighbor David Westerfield to be executed for the kidnapping and homicide of my 7-year-old neighbor, Danielle van Dam. And now thanks to @GavinNewsom, it seems to be like it’s going to never occur. I used to be 13 when he kidnapped her from her bed room in the center of the evening in 2002. I’d never equate what I skilled with what her household suffered, but Danielle’s homicide devastated our entire neighborhood, and me personally. I used to be a delicate child and it was a major contributor to my mental health decline in adolescence. In the 20 days between her disappearance and his arrest, I developed insomnia and spent those nights strolling around the home checking the locks on the doorways and home windows. I adopted the trial intently. As we realized the horrific particulars, I could not stop considering about what she endured during the three days he had her. Her physique was discovered dumped off the facet of a street 25 days after she went lacking. It was too decomposed to take a look at for inappropriate assault, but we all knew that’s why he took her. He was also convicted of possessing little one inappropriate abuse materials discovered on his pc. There was never any doubt about Westerfield’s guilt. There was an abundance of forensic evidence, including her blood on his clothes and in his motorhome. In 2019, the California Supreme Court unanimously upheld his conviction and death sentence. Shortly afterward, Newsom imposed his moratorium. And now he does THIS. California voters rejected abolishing the death penalty in both 2012 and 2016, and even voted to expedite executions. All these years, I’ve held on to the hope that somebody would ultimately take workplace who revered the desire of California voters and would enable these sentences to be carried out. It’s particularly insulting to hear Newsom go on about morality, as if he’s morally superior to those of us whose lives have been affected by these heinous crimes and who need to see the perpetrators introduced to justice. I’m hoping the California Supreme Court can stop Westerfield’s commutation.

— Christina Buttons (@buttonslives) November 5, 2026

Christina Buttons, now an investigative reporter with the Manhattan Institute, was a neighbor of both the sufferer and the assassin in that case; she was only 13 when her 7-year-old neighbor was kidnapped and murdered:

As we realized the horrific particulars, I could not stop considering about what she endured during the three days he had her. Her physique was discovered dumped off the facet of a street 25 days after she went lacking. It was too decomposed to take a look at for inappropriate assault, but we all knew that’s why he took her. He was also convicted of possessing little one inappropriate abuse materials discovered on his pc. There was never any doubt about Westerfield’s guilt. There was an abundance of forensic evidence, including her blood on his clothes and in his motorhome. In 2019, the California Supreme Court unanimously upheld his conviction and death sentence.

Then we have now Isauro Aguirre, one of the 2 people accountable for the torture and homicide of Gabriel Fernandez. Aguirre tortured and beat 8-year-old Gabriel, his girlfriend’s little one, for eight months, until Gabriel’s physique could not take any more. Gabriel suffered quite a few accidents, including a fractured cranium, 12 damaged ribs, and burns, prosecutors said. The boy also had been pressured to eat cat feces and slept certain and gagged inside a small cupboard.

https://t.co/AMuavDz0lV

— jonathanhatami (@jonathanhatami) November 5, 2026

I used to be struck by the phrases of Jonathan Hatami, the Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney who prosecuted Gabriel’s killers, in his closing argument in Aguirre’s case. Hatami shared them again Thursday evening, on what was undoubtedly an agonizing night:

“Gabriel was in agony for almost 240 days. He was humiliated, intimidated, shamed, bullied, scared, abused, and tortured by the defendant. He was made to feel like nothing, nobody. He was made to blame himself and feel ashamed. He was carried by the defendant, after he was beaten to death, like trash. Just discarded by the defendant. Death was likely a merciful end to Gabriel’s pain – and that only illuminates the torture and abuse that he really suffered. When he needed it most, no one was there to hold Gabriel, to love him, to caress him, and to just tell him ‘everything will be alright.’

“Gabriel will not be forgotten. You heard that from all the witnesses. His death will not be in vain. You, the jury, have seen the journey of torture and abuse Gabriel went through. We ask that you hold the defendant accountable. The ultimate punishment is truly appropriate for the defendant, even though it does not even compare to what the defendant did to Gabriel.

“The defendant is not a victim. No one who does this to a child can ever be called a victim. No one who does this to a child can have good inside of him. He is a 37-year-old grown man. He has absolutely no excuses. He did it. He got off on it. He is responsible. Pure evil. No one who embraces inflicting pain upon an innocent little boy should ever be allowed to portray himself as a victim. You now know what a victim is. A victim is someone who has his teeth knocked out, his liver lacerated, his skull fractured, his penis bruised and burned, his ribs broken, and his entire body bruised and battered. A victim is a child who was muffled and stuffed in a box. Who was forced to eat cat litter and cat feces. Who was forced to eat his own vomit. Gabriel is truly an example of courage. The defendant, on the other hand, is a true example of an evil coward. A bully. We ask that you hold him accountable.”  

Yet, Gavin Newsom believes this monster deserves to have a taxpayer-funded life for however many years he has left.

Richard Allen Davis, the person who killed Polly Klaas.

Richard Allen Davis grinned ear to ear as the jury gave him the death penalty for kidnapping, raping, and killing 12yo Polly Klaas just weeks after getting out of prison. Then he turned around, made eye contact with Polly’s father Marc Klaas, laughed, and flipped him off.

— 💥Susan Dyer Reynolds🗞️ (@SusanDReynolds) November 6, 2026

I can not even go on with more examples.

Newsom claims his Catholic religion informs his beliefs on the death penalty. But he does not get to select to elevate his personal religion above the law and above what voters said. His actions are the last word election denial.

In addition, if his views on the death penalty are allegedly based on his Catholic religion, he hasn’t appeared to wrestle with other life-and-death points on which Catholic teachings are completely clear: abortion and euthanasia. He’s been a big supporter of abortion, and of giving girls the power to have as many abortions as late in being pregnant as they want. And, in his memoir launched earlier this 12 months, he described giving his mom, who was in the ultimate levels of her breast cancer battle, the painkillers needed to calm her before the “courageous doctor” arrived to carry out the then-illegal “Medical Assistance in Dying” euthanasia.

Quite a handy set of convictions.

(I’m not denying that it was a traumatic expertise for Newsom, who, by all accounts, was very close with his mom; I watched my own father die a painful death from cancer in 2017, and I’d have supported my dad in his resolution if he’d have had the chance to select euthanasia. But I would not then flip around and cite my religion in commuting the death sentence of murderers.)

One justice advocate in the Golden State penned this open letter to Newsom, which deserves reprinting in its entirety.

An Open Letter to @GavinNewsom,

Your resolution to commute the death sentences of all 548 people at the moment on California’s death row raises profound questions about govt authority, accountability, and whose pursuits our justice system is absolutely meant to serve.

These weren’t 548 arbitrary sentences. They have been imposed through a judicial course of involving trials, evidence, juries, and judicial review. Many concerned terribly brutal crimes and victims whose lives have been taken under horrific circumstances. Circumstances that the advantages of state police and guarded communities defend you from.

I need to know how you weighed the pursuits of those victims and their households in making a resolution of this magnitude. What consideration was given to the households who have spent years, sometimes a long time, ready for justice? What significant function did they’ve in this resolution?

Equally troubling is the looks that this resolution is less about the person circumstances of these instances and more about advancing your own political agenda. The timing of which has not gone unnoticed. It is troublesome to ignore the political implications of making such a sweeping announcement, notably when your national political ambitions have been the subject of appreciable public dialogue. This motion creates the impression that California’s justice system and the lives of crime victims’ households have change into collateral to your political positioning. 

California’s justice system ought to NOT be a vehicle for a governor to construct a political legacy, increase his reputation with the DSA motion, or burnish his national repute. These are issues of life, death, justice, and accountability. They deserve significantly more seriousness than a sweeping political announcement.

You have the constitutional authority to exercise clemency. But having the authority to make a resolution doesn’t remove the duty to clarify it, notably when that resolution impacts lots of of instances and so many people past the people receiving clemency. No. What you might have carried out is indicative of the king-complex you might have so rabidly spoken against.

You have described this as a matter of California’s values. But California’s values are NOT yours alone to outline. The public has a reputable curiosity in HOW the death penalty is run, HOW the desire of voters is revered, and HOW the rights and pursuits of crime victims are thought of.

Victims’ households and voters alike deserve a substantive clarification of the requirements utilized, the consideration given to particular person circumstances, and the justification for treating 548 totally different instances with one sweeping govt motion. (Though your sweeping resolution could never attain the 166 that will require judicial review.)

The households of homicide victims deserve more than a canned acknowledgment that this resolution could also be painful for them. They deserve to know that their family members, their struggling, and the pursuit of justice got severe consideration

Executive clemency is a large duty, not a political prop. The governor’s workplace shouldn’t be a personal platform for advancing national ambitions, and the victims of violent crime ought to never change into an afterthought in the pursuit of a political legacy.

California deserved management that is succesful of recognizing the distinction.

Instead, we bought management that believes these monsters just need a Learing Center.

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