Joia Erin Thornton
The Faith Leaders of Color Coalition represents more than 800 Black clergy across the United States and its U.S. territories. Together, we applaud Governor Newsom’s commitment to confronting racial bias and inequity and the steps he has taken toward that goal. The road to equity and reconciliation is long, but it must be grounded in truth and justice; Governor Newsom is moving us closer to that goal.
California has long had the country’s largest death row, by far. Newsom’s commutations offer a powerful example of how accountability can be balanced with mercy, one we hope governors across the country will follow.
As faith leaders of color, we see the death penalty in the context of a broader history of racial terror and violence. We know that its application is arbitrary, excessive, and shaped by bias rather than true justice. It is also irreversible in a system that is not infallible, carrying the real risk of executing innocent people and foreclosing the possibility of redemption that our faith teaches us should always remain open.
These problems are all manifest in California, where 69% of the people sentenced to death have been people of color, and one-third are Black. California prosecutors have invoked racial stereotypes in seeking death sentences, while state and federal courts have blocked efforts by defense attorneys to investigate racial bias in capital cases.
These are not isolated imperfections. They are hallmarks of a system in which the ultimate punishment is imposed arbitrarily and unequally.
Wrongful convictions are also a very real problem in California. Eight innocent people have been exonerated after being sentenced to death in California since 1972, among the more than 200 death row exonerees nationwide.
We also know from walking with survivors of crime and violence that the death penalty neither heals nor protects. While the Trump Administration slashed $811 million worth of grants for victim services, gun violence prevention, and community safety programs, Governor Newsom has stepped up state investments in drug intervention efforts, violence prevention programs, and services for crime victims.
Now, with his bold decision to commute death row, he creates exciting opportunities for California to reallocate millions of taxpayer dollars to further enhance public safety and assist crime survivors.
The death penalty also continues to ensnare people who are particularly vulnerable to injustice, including people with intellectual disabilities, brain injuries and serious mental illnesses, as well as people who endured severe childhood trauma and abuse. Many of those on California’s death row were sentenced to death for crimes committed as late adolescents, before their brains had fully developed.
By commuting all of California’s death sentences, Governor Newsom offers a principled response to the system’s irreparable flaws. Each of the people whose death sentence is commuted will remain in prison for the rest of their lives.
With a collective voice of more than 800 clergy, we applaud this decision. We will continue to confront the use of the death penalty until it is fully abolished across all U.S. states and territories.
In 1957, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. explained that “capital punishment is against the better judgment of modern criminology and, above all, against the highest expression of love in the nature of God.” His words still challenge us today. A society committed to racial reconciliation cannot ignore the ways in which race and inequality have shaped who receives the ultimate punishment.
Governor Newsom has heeded Dr. King’s call. We hope his decision will reverberate widely and spark other leaders to take similarly courageous action.
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Founder & National Director of FLOCC, working to address the racial implications and inequities in the American Death Penalty System