The following opinion piece “Governor Newsom Should Commute All California Death Row Sentences” appeared in the Sacramento Bee and is written by Michael Pappas, Executive Director of the San Francisco Interfaith Council.
Excerpts appear below.
For generations, California has understood itself as a place willing to wrestle with hard questions, especially when human dignity is at stake. By commuting California’s death sentences to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, Gov. Gavin Newsom could reject capital punishment as incompatible with human dignity.
California has never claimed moral perfection, but we have shown a capacity to reflect, grow and bring our policies closer to our values. Few issues ask us to do that work as clearly as the death penalty, and few policies have failed California as profoundly as capital punishment.
Over many years as executive director of the San Francisco Interfaith Council, I have talked with people who know violence up close: Families who have lost loved ones; communities carrying trauma; and people navigating incarceration, despair and grief. For them, values are not theoretical. Human dignity, human rights and equal justice are not slogans. They are the difference between harm that compounds and harm that begins to heal.
Today, approximately 560 people face execution in California. Ours is the largest death row in the nation and one of the largest in the world. Two-thirds of those individuals have been on death row for more than 20 years, and some for over 40. These delays are the result of a system unable to meet its own obligations, particularly the provision of counsel for capital appeals. That produces generations of uncertainty and does not offer justice to anyone involved.
Survivors and families have been trapped in a process that stretches grief across decades, reopening wounds rather than allowing them to heal. Accountability matters deeply to survivors. But accountability that is endlessly deferred, arbitrarily applied and disconnected from healing does not bring the peace people seek.
Newsom’s moratorium on executions, the dismantling of the death chamber and the closure of death row facilities were meaningful acts of leadership acknowledging these intractable problems. Now, the governor should grant universal clemency and commute all California death sentences, bringing these cases into alignment with the moral direction our state has taken on other human rights issues, such as the protection of immigrant communities.
Since the governor imposed the moratorium, many Californians believe the death penalty has ended. As it stands, we are living in the space between recognition and resolution. Now it is time for the governor to finish the job by commuting death row sentences to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. This act would serve as a beacon to guide the rest of the nation on a similar path.
You can read the full opinion, “Governor Newsom Should Commute All California Death Row Sentences” at the Sacramento Bee website.
Michael Pappas is executive director of the San Francisco Interfaith Council. The San Francisco Interfaith Council (SFIC) convenes and amplifies the voice of our City’s faith-based community on such issues as homelessness, disaster preparedness response and recovery, civil and human rights, housing affordability, immigration and so much more.
