(PJ Media) On November. 8, 2016, Californians voted NO on Proposition 62, which would have abolished the death penalty and replaced existing death sentences with life imprisonment without parole. Ten years later, Gov. Gavin Newsom has decided to take matters into his own hands.
On Thursday, November 5, Newsom announced that he would commute the death sentences of all 548 inmates on California's death row to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The sweeping decision, made during his final months in office, affects some of the state's most notorious convicted murderers and has sparked outrage among the public, the victims' families, and prosecutors.
For families who spent years seeking justice, the horrible decision raises a troubling question: Should one governor's personal opposition to the death penalty outweigh the sentences handed down by juries, reviewed by the courts, and a death penalty system that California voters chose to retain in 2016? I do not think so at all.