Newsom Pulls America Forward

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Governor Gavin Newsom of California, a young, progressive Democrat who is about to complete his second (and final) four-year term as the leader of the nation's most populous state, is thought by many to be positioning himself for a run for the presidency of the United States.  Yesterday Governor Newsom threw down a bold marker highlighting one likely item on his campaign platform.   He commuted the sentences of  the entirety of California's 548 death row residents from death to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Newsom announced a moratorium on the use of the death penalty in March of 2019, two months after he became governor, and consequently did not oversee any executions during his two terms in office.  Now, by commuting all death sentences in the state he is insuring that it will likely be decades before newly convicted murders will be able to work their way through the various appeals and realistically expect to face capital punishment.  Governor Newsom has brought his state well into the 21st century.

The hue and cry for capital punishment has traditionally been based on an unsubstantiated assumption that killing killers deters others from killing. The death penalty as a deterrent argument has never been born out by quality research, and there is no credible evidence showing that the death penalty deters murders more effectively than long prison sentences like life behind bars.  Just last month the state of Florida executed James Robertson, a 63-year-old inmate who had been serving a life sentence until he murdered his cellmate for the express reason that he wanted to be executed and abort that life sentence.  (Would that qualify as state-assisted suicide?)

Killing people for revenge. or retribution is barbaric - just look at the horrific botched execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee last month, and it eliminates the possibility of redress if new evidence comes to light after the wrong person has been convicted and executed.  It is irreversibly final.

The Old West closed out at the end of the 19th century.  It is well past time for America to move on.  Thank you, Governor Newsom, for pulling us forward into a brighter, more civilized future.