The California Supreme Court must review 382 of the 548 death sentences that Governor Gavin Newsom moved to commute on Thursday, and if the court does not act before Newsom leaves office in January, the unapproved commutations would expire. That deadline, more than any lawsuit, is the real test of the largest mass commutation in modern American history, because it turns a sweeping moral gesture into a race against the calendar, and the court has not said how long the review will take.
Why it matters
The rule is written into the California Constitution. A governor can unilaterally grant clemency to offenders convicted in only one felony case, but for prisoners with convictions in multiple felony cases, the governor must get a recommendation from the state Supreme Court, with at least four justices concurring, before commuting the sentence. That requirement applies to 382 of the 548 people on death row, about two thirds of them, and Newsom has asked the court to return its recommendations by the end of 2026 so he can issue commutation certificates before his term ends. A state Supreme Court spokeswoman declined to comment on how long that could take.
The opponents of the commutations know the calendar is on their side. Anne Marie Schubert, a former Sacramento district attorney who leads the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, contends that the court must review each case individually, and she said her group plans to sue, arguing that the governor violated the law with a blanket commutation and that each case must be considered on its individual merits. The argument is not about whether clemency is lawful. It is about whether it can be granted to 548 people at once, without an individual review of each case, and whether a court can meaningfully review 382 cases in less than two months.
What happens next
The numbers behind the decision show why the fight matters. California death row is the largest in the Western Hemisphere, with 529 men and 19 women, and it has not carried out an execution in 20 years, since 2006. Newsom imposed a moratorium on executions shortly after taking office in 2019, and California voters kept the death penalty in 2012 and 2016, which means the commutations do not abolish it. Prosecutors can still seek the death penalty in new cases, and about 70 capital cases remain pending statewide, including four in which juries have already recommended death sentences.
What happens next will be decided by the court, and by the clock. If the Supreme Court works through the 382 cases and returns its recommendations before January, the commutations will stand as the largest mass commutation in United States history, well past the 167 that Illinois Governor George Ryan commuted in 2003. If it does not, a large share of them will simply expire, and the next governor will inherit a death row that is smaller but still intact. Newsom acted just two months before he will leave office, and as he considers a run for president. The court will decide whether his final act survives him.
