San Joaquin County District Attorney Ron Freitas has stated his office will continue to seek the death penalty in appropriate cases, pushing back against Governor Gavin Newsom's recent decision to commute the sentences of all 548 inmates on California's death row. Freitas described Newsom's action as a "mass erasure of justice" that sidelines victims' families and undoes years of prosecutorial work.
"We will continue to prosecute the worst of the worst and selectively find those individuals, and we will continue to seek the death penalty in the right cases, for the right individuals, for our right victims," Freitas told KCRA.
Freitas expressed that victims' families were devastated by the commutation, which effectively replaced death sentences with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. He argued that the decision erased the justice they had been awaiting for years. "Our victims are amazing, to have gone through what they’ve gone through. Waiting for their cases to be solved, seeing," he said. "And now the appellate system and to have so much taken away overnight in one stroke of a pen, I cannot tell you how devastated they are, but also how inspired we are all the district attorneys across the state to fight for them and to get them justice."
Governor Newsom defended his decision in a letter, citing moral concerns about state-sanctioned killing and the possibility of wrongful convictions. "But as Governor, I have concluded the state cannot morally kill them," Newsom wrote, adding that the inmates could instead "die in obscurity while we forever remember and honor their victims." This move represents a significant step in Newsom's long-standing opposition to capital punishment.
While Newsom imposed a moratorium on executions in 2019, prosecutors have still been legally permitted to seek death sentences. California has not carried out an execution since 2006. A Pew Research Center survey from July indicated that approximately 66% of Americans support the death penalty for murder convictions, while 32% oppose it.
Freitas criticized Newsom's administration for not consulting with district attorneys before the announcement, which he believes deprived victims' families and prosecutors of a voice. He contested the idea of treating all death row inmates equally, emphasizing that these cases involved individuals convicted of severe crimes, including mass murderers, repeat offenders, serial killers, and child killers.
Newsom stated he consulted with crime victims, survivors, public safety experts, religious leaders, and civil rights advocates. He argued that differentiating between inmates based on their crimes would create unequal treatment for victims and that the death penalty is incompatible with California's values due to concerns about wrongful convictions and the state's protracted capital punishment system.
The commutations do not grant any inmates parole eligibility. The California Supreme Court will review the changes for hundreds of cases. Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman echoed Freitas's sentiment, stating that the commutations do not abolish the death penalty, as that power lies with the Legislature or voters, who have twice rejected ballot initiatives to end capital punishment.