Gov. Gavin Newsom fully commuted the death sentences of 548 inmates on Thursday, ending his moratorium on executions and dismantling the Death Row block at San Quentin.
The decision drew sharp criticism from local prosecutors, including Yuba County District Attorney Clint Curry and Colusa County District Attorney Matthew Beauchamp. Curry noted that his office continues to remember Yuba County's lone death sentence case involving Eric Houston, who was sentenced to death on Sept. 20, 1993, after being convicted of killing four people at Lindhurst High School in May 1992.
Sandy Friend, the mother of eight-year-old Michael Lyons, who was kidnapped and killed in Yuba City in 1996 by Robert Boyd Rhoades, expressed dismay to a local news report that the governor acted without contacting families. Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper and other elected officials also condemned the action, citing cases such as the 2014 killings of law enforcement officers by Luis Bracamontes.
In his official announcement, Newsom stated that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California's values. The move also erased the 1999 death sentence of Charles Ng, who was convicted alongside Leonard Lake for multiple murders in Calaveras County between 1983 and 1985.
