Trump says Newsom ‘freed’ people from death penalty as commutations await legal steps

Donald Trump says California governor Gavin Newsom has ‘freed’ people from the death penalty. Newsom’s plan to replace all the state’s death sentences is still awaiting legal steps, though a separate 2019 moratorium has already suspended executions without changing the sentences.

In a Truth Social post on 14 November, Trump said some of the people he was describing made Hannibal Lecter, the fictional killer in *The Silence of the Lambs*, ‘look like a nice guy’. He did not name anyone or specify whether he meant the pending commutations or the moratorium. He did not say prisoners had been released from custody.

Earlier that day, in a separate post, Trump criticised what he called Newsom’s halting of the death penalty and said he hoped the decision would be overturned.

On 5 November, Newsom announced a plan to commute the death sentences of all 548 people sentenced to death in California to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The plan would leave the prisoners in custody and their convictions intact; it would not remove the death penalty from California law.

His office says the commutations will not take effect until the necessary legal steps are complete. The Habeas Corpus Resource Center, which represents people sentenced to death and supports Newsom’s request, says on a page dated 5 November that none of the sentences had yet been formally commuted.

California last executed a prisoner in 2006, before Newsom imposed his moratorium. Newsom says he considers state-sanctioned killing incompatible with California’s values.

For 382 of the prisoners, Newsom must obtain a recommendation from the California Supreme Court before granting clemency, because they have more than one felony conviction. At least four justices must agree; the other 166 cases do not require that particular recommendation. His filing says he did not consider those 382 prisoners’ individual circumstances beyond their death sentences and multiple convictions. It says the decision is universal and the recipients would remain in prison.

Among the intended recipients is Richard Allen Davis, convicted of kidnapping and murdering 12-year-old Polly Klaas. Her father, Marc Klaas, told CalMatters before the announcement that the prospect ‘upsets me terribly’. Her sister, Jess Nichol, said she no longer believed executing Davis would help her recovery.

The court has invited legal submissions by 24 November, and Newsom may respond by 4 December. The Orange County district attorney has applied to file a brief opposing the request.