A lenten plea to Newsom: Commute California's death sentences

Every step of Christ's Passion invites us, here and now, to reckon with the inequities and injustices built into our modern system of capital punishment. In California, which has held the largest death row in the country for decades, many of the men and women sentenced to die do not even have lawyers assigned to advocate for them. An inordinate number of those people on death row have intellectual disabilities, serious mental illness, or find themselves victims of a racially biased system. 

This immoral system also ensnares the innocent. As of February, 202 people — including eight in California — have been exonerated from America's death rows. The death penalty is a fatally flawed system. And we believe that no matter the harm one has caused or suffered, every person deserves to be treated with human dignity.

Though needles and gurneys replace the nails and thorns of Jesus' time, capital punishment today is no less cruel or barbaric than what we witness on Calvary.

It is true that Newsom holds some public policy positions that are at odds with church teaching. However, on the issue of the death penalty, his stance falls consistently in line with clear Catholic teaching. In fact, in 2018 Pope Francis revised the Catechism of the Catholic Church, asserting "the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person." 

I recall vividly when Newsom, early in his tenure seven years ago, suspended the death penalty in California. On March 13, 2019, he signed an executive order which placed a welcome moratorium on state executions, and I remember seeing pictures in the newspaper of prison officials physically removing the death chamber. In 2022, Newsom helped to establish a process for death row inmates to receive relief from convictions or death sentences obtained "on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin." And in 2023, Newsom dismantled the physical death row at San Quentin and began the process of reintegrating these individuals into general prison populations throughout the state. Today, the infamous prison which housed the largest death row in the country is a facility dedicated to restoration, healing and rehabilitation.

Newsom's efforts to turn away from the death penalty have been praised and supported by the Catholic Church — including people in the pews; to national groups like my own organization, Catholic Mobilizing Network; to the Catholic bishops of California; and all the way up to the Vatican. 

Newsom's actions on capital punishment have demonstrated how justice can be rooted in mercy and restoration instead of death and retribution. This is the restoration realized on Easter Sunday, triumphing over the vengeance on display on Good Friday.

Newsom has made strides in advancing this kind of restoration regarding the death penalty in the state of California. But so long as these more than 500 death sentences exist, lives remain at risk and in the hands of a future administration. 

Some may think California will never return to executions. We once thought that was true of the federal government, but we were proved wrong. While the California death chamber was dismantled, San Quentin continues to be legally designated as the site for executions. Its execution equipment may be considered a vestige of the past, but, in fact, it sits in the basement, waiting for the day it may be used. As long as people are sentenced to death in California, they remain at risk of execution because of changing political winds. 

In this Lenten season I wonder: Will Newsom tolerate this injustice as Pontius Pilate did and wash his hands of the issue, doing nothing more than what is required of him? Or will he take another courageous step and boldly act with executive authority to save the lives of hundreds of people? 

A choice lies before him. He can remain in the death of Good Friday, or he can continue the good work he's already done, and take steps toward the restoration of Easter Sunday. On this Lenten journey, I pray that Newsom chooses the latter.

Jesus himself teaches us to embrace compassion, forgiveness, and love over vengeance. On the road to Calvary, Jesus shows us what it looks like to "love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you" (Matthew 5:44). The final words he leaves us with are, "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do."

When we walk in Jesus' footsteps in the Way of the Cross this Lent, we have the chance to learn from his example and do our part to contribute to the end of state-sanctioned death in our time.

Newsom has an opportunity to lead with mercy. I encourage him to act soon.