OSPD STATEMENT ON UNIVERSAL CLEMENCY

We applaud Governor Newsom’s historic decision to commute all death sentences in California. This is an important recognition that California’s death penalty system is arbitrary, racially discriminatory, and broken. We are confident that the California Supreme Court will act promptly on the application that requires their approval so that the Governor’s aim of universal clemency is realized.

This decision does not end the death penalty in California. While these commutations are an important step toward remedying past injustices, they do not prevent them going forward. California’s flawed death penalty scheme remains unchanged.

There are dozens of capital cases still pending in trial courts in California and we anticipate more to come. Data shows us that who gets the death penalty is far more about race and geography than the facts of the crime. Most death penalty cases in California are brought in a small number of counties, against poor people of color, who have attorneys that are not adequately resourced and juries who are stacked towards death.

The attorneys at OSPD will keep standing beside every person we represent to provide the committed defense the Constitution requires. We will also continue to pursue our landmark case, OSPD v. Bonta, which challenges the discrimination embedded in California’s death penalty scheme. A legal system in which race shapes who faces a life-or-death punishment cannot be reconciled with the California constitution or with our state’s ideals of justice.

We encourage the public to keep learning about how the death penalty works, and we urge lawmakers to take up the deeper reforms that clemency alone cannot deliver.