Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday that he is moving to commute the death sentences of all 548 people on California's death row, a step that would empty the largest capital-punishment population in the country without abolishing the death penalty itself. Under the plan, every current death sentence would be converted to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The move is not yet final for most of the people it affects. Under California law, a governor can unilaterally commute a death sentence only in cases without additional felony convictions. For the roughly 382 prisoners who do have other felony convictions on their record, Newsom's commutation request must go to the California Supreme Court for review and approval before it takes effect.

The largest clemency action in U.S. history

Legal groups tracking the move called it unprecedented in scale. The Death Penalty Information Center said no governor, in California or any other state, has ever commuted that many death sentences at once. The previous largest mass clemency on record was former Illinois Gov. George Ryan's 2003 commutation of 167 death sentences just before he left office — roughly a third the size of Newsom's action.

The announcement builds on a reprieve Newsom issued earlier in his tenure that halted executions for everyone on the state's death row without changing their sentences. Thursday's move goes further, aiming to resentence every one of them to life without parole.

The ACLU of Southern California praised the decision, framing it as recognition that capital punishment in the state has functioned less as a real sentence than as a permanent limbo — California has not carried out an execution in nearly two decades even as its death row swelled past 500 people. Some district attorneys pushed back, arguing that only California voters, who have twice rejected ballot measures to repeal the death penalty, have the standing to end it outright.

Newsom's order does not touch the death penalty statute itself. Prosecutors can still seek death sentences in future cases, and the state's capital-punishment law remains on the books. What changes, if the court approves the remaining cases, is that nobody currently condemned in California would still be facing execution.

What happens next

The commutations for prisoners without additional felony convictions can take effect without further review. For the larger group with multiple felony convictions, the Washington Post reported that the process is still in its early stages — the governor has filed the requests, but the state's high court has not yet ruled on them, and there is no firm timeline for when it will.

Among those whose sentences would be affected are some of the state's most notorious convicted killers, a point death-penalty supporters have seized on in objecting to a blanket approach rather than case-by-case review. Newsom, term-limited and widely seen as weighing a future national campaign, has called capital punishment in California both morally wrong and a practical failure — the state has spent billions of dollars maintaining a death row that has not executed anyone since 2006.