Newsom Commutes Serial Killers’ Death Sentences, Sparking DA Fury

WHO:

NY Post - California Gov. Gavin Newsom commuted the death sentences of all 548 people on California’s death row.

NY Post - Andrew Wagner said he learned of the clemency decision while scrolling through X during a break at the gym.

NY Post - San Joaquin County District Attorney Ron Freitas called the decision a “mass erasure of justice” and vowed to keep seeking executions.

SFGATE - Newsom said conversations with Polly Klaas’s two sisters influenced his decision. Polly’s father, Marc Klaas, opposed Newsom’s stance against the death penalty.

SFGATE - The article identified Celeste Carrington, David Carpenter, Richard Allen Davis, Randy Kraft, Joseph Naso, Charles Ng and Cary Stayner as among the notorious inmates whose death sentences were commuted.

WHAT:

SFGATE - Newsom used his constitutional authority to commute the sentences of more than 500 California death-row prisoners; they will serve life in prison without the possibility of parole.

SFGATE - Newsom wrote that “state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values, undermines the foundations of our legal system, and diminishes each of us.” He called the decision “among the most difficult of my career” and said, “We can now let these offenders die in obscurity while we forever remember and honor their victims.”

SFGATE - California had not executed a death-row prisoner since 2006. Newsom instituted a formal death-penalty moratorium after taking office in 2019; he said the state had the Western Hemisphere’s largest death row.

SFGATE - Carrington, 64, was convicted of killing a janitor and a property manager and wounding a doctor during robberies of Bay Area offices. Her death sentence was upheld in 2009.

SFGATE - Carpenter, the “Trailside Killer,” was convicted of eight murders and suspected of more. He was arrested in 1981 and was 96.

SFGATE - Davis kidnapped and murdered 12-year-old Polly Klaas after breaking into her Petaluma home. He confessed and directed investigators to her grave; the case helped build support for California’s three-strikes law, passed in 1994. He was 72.

SFGATE - Kraft, the “Scorecard Killer,” was convicted of 16 murders. Investigators found a list of more than 60 coded names and places in his car; two additional likely victims were identified in recent years. He was 81.

SFGATE - Naso was convicted of killing at least four women and was believed to have killed at least 10. A diary found in 2010 documented sexual assaults of nearly a dozen women. He was 92.

SFGATE - Ng was convicted of 11 murders with Leonard Lake; the pair kidnapped people and buried remains at Lake’s Wilseyville property. Ng was 65, and remains from the mass grave were still being identified.

SFGATE - Stayner killed three tourists in 1999 and later killed a naturalist. Police traced a distinctive car reported by a witness to Stayner, who worked as a Cedar Lodge handyman.

WHERE:

SFGATE - Carrington is incarcerated at Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla; Carpenter at California Health Care Facility near Stockton; Kraft at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego; Naso at California Health Care Facility; and Ng at California Medical Facility in Vacaville.

SFGATE - The article places Davis’s kidnapping of Polly Klaas in Petaluma and her grave near Cloverdale, off Highway 101. Ng and Lake’s crimes involved a property in Wilseyville.

WHY:

SFGATE - Newsom said he commuted the sentences because he believes capital punishment conflicts with California’s values and undermines its legal system; he acknowledged the decision would cause pain to some victims’ families.

HOW:

SFGATE - Newsom carried out the commutations under his constitutional authority as governor.

NY Post - Wagner encountered the announcement on X while taking a gym break.

(UPDATED November 9, 2026 17:00 UTC)

California Governor Gavin Newsom commuted all 548 death sentences to life without parole. He said capital punishment conflicts with California’s values and weakens its legal system. A prosecutor condemned the decision, while Newsom acknowledged victims’ families may feel pain.