Gavin Newsom to grant clemency to all 548 death row inmates in California as he declares capital punishment 'morally wrong'

The Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, has said he will commute the death sentences of all 548 inmates currently condemned to execution in the state.

The Democrat, tipped as a potential Presidential candidate for 2028, said he believes "capital punishment to be morally wrong" as he nears the end of his second and final four-year term as governor.

Mr Newsom, who previously served as mayor of San Francisco and lieutenant governor, declared a moratorium on executions in March 2019, about two months after first taking office as governor.

California, which had the largest death row in the Western Hemisphere, last put a prisoner to death in 2006 when Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor.

Under Mr Newsom's sweeping grant of clemency, the death sentences of all 548 condemned prisoners will be commuted to life in prison without eligibility for parole.

In the announcement, a three-page letter addressed to "all Californians," the Governor said he was "acting on my long and deeply held conviction that individually and collectively we are stronger as a society when we reject state-sanctioned killing."

He acknowledged that death row inmates were convicted of causing "indescribable suffering," and that "many Californians feel that those who commit brutal crimes deserve to die."

Mr Newsom said: "But as governor, I have concluded the state cannot morally kill them. These offenders will die in prison, but not by our hand."

Capital punishment remains on the books in California as a sentencing option unless repealed by voters or the legislature, and could be restored to practice by future governors.

California voters last upheld the death penalty in 2016, rejecting a referendum to abolish executions while approving another measure designed to reform and speed up the process.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said his office would continue to "evaluate every death penalty-eligible case with the rigour, care and restraint these decisions demand."

Mr Newsom is the latest of more than a half-dozen US governors to have granted mass clemencies in their states in recent years, but his death row reprieve ranks as the largest yet, according to Laura Porter, head of the US Campaign to End the Death Penalty.

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The debate surrounding capital punishment in the US hit global headlines after the state of Tennessee's failed execution of condemned killer Christa Pike, who survived two attempts to inject her with lethal drugs on September 30.

Pike, whom witnesses heard gasping, crying, whimpering and breathing loudly through much of the botched procedure, was hospitalised afterwards and sent back to prison on October 10.

The death penalty received further scrutiny after Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced plans to livestream the planned firing-squad execution of Nidal Hasan.

Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and wounding more than 30 others in a shooting at the Fort Hood military base in Texas on November 5, 2009.

President Donald Trump later ruled out a livestream of the execution after backlash from senior Republican figures and human rights campaigners, but Hasan is still scheduled to be executed by firing squad on December 3.

The debate surrounding capital punishment remains a contentious topic among Americans.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted weeks after the bungled execution in Tennessee found 55 per cent of Americans support the death penalty for people convicted of the most serious crimes, down from 63 per cent in 2017, while 31 per cent said they opposed capital punishment altogether.

In the same poll, a third of respondents said they believed the government should try a second time to put a condemned criminal to death if a first execution attempt fails.

About 15 countries still actively execute people, according to the human rights group Amnesty International.

The death penalty remains on the books in 27 US states, although executions are concentrated in a handful of those states, and more than 20 states have abolished capital punishment altogether.

California's cohort of condemned inmates accounts for more than a fourth of nearly 2,000 prisoners on death row nationwide, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Mr Newsom's death penalty stance contrasts sharply with that of President Trump, who resumed US government executions following a 20-year gap near the end of his first White House term, putting 13 federal prisoners to death by lethal injection in his final few months in office.

While the clemency act has no bearing on federal cases, Bill Essayli, a Trump-appointed US prosecutor in Los Angeles, decried Newsom's move as "a major blow to Californians and the families of victims murdered in horrific circumstances."