Taking a break from calling President Donald Trump an authoritarian, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has decided to unilaterally eliminate the death penalty in California, rewriting sentences in hundreds of cases against the will of California voters.
On his way out of office, Newsom commuted the sentences of all 548 convicted criminals on California’s death row. Newsom had already paused all executions in California, preventing families of the victims from receiving the justice promised to them by California’s criminal justice system. Now, pretending that he is actually looking out for the families of these victims, Newsom has decreed that every death sentence previously handed down is void. All 548 criminals will now serve “life without parole.”
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Newsom did this despite the will of California voters having been made crystal clear over the years. Californians overwhelmingly voted to expand the death penalty back in 1978, and voters shot down an attempt to repeal it in 2012. In 2016, voters not only voted down another proposition aimed at repealing the death penalty but also approved a proposition that shortened the appeals process with the goal of speeding up executions from the glacial pace at which they were being carried out.
California Democrats have a monopoly on state power, and yet they have not chosen to legislatively repeal the death penalty, nor have they once again put the issue to voters through another proposition. Instead, Newsom unilaterally chose to pause the death penalty and has now chosen to unilaterally eliminate it for decades’ worth of criminal cases, effectively rendering it a dead letter moving forward, as no victim’s family or prosecutorial team would have any reason to believe pursuing the death penalty would make any difference in a case.
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This is not a cut-and-dried issue in isolation, either. It should be noted that California Democrats have spent the last several years systematically eliminating life sentences through such things as “elderly parole” and have considered numerous bills that would even eliminate the possibility of “life without parole” as a criminal sentence. Newsom is not just actively undermining the criminal justice system Californians have voted for; he is setting the table for the release of convicted murderers whom victims’ families and communities thought would never see the light of day again, whenever California Democrats decide to weaken the justice system again.
Democrats rant and rave about the sanctity of democracy and the importance of their “No Kings” protests, and yet here is Newsom abusing his clemency powers to circumvent the will of voters and act as a king, single-handedly altering the justice system in his desired image. Newsom is an authoritarian at heart, as is the Democratic Party, and all the wailing about democracy is nothing more than an act to rile up voters about perceived GOP oversteps and direct their attention away from Democratic abuses of power.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
