California Governor Gavin Newsom has commuted the sentences of every inmate awaiting execution in the state, where 548 people were being held on death row, infohub.kz reports.
According to Bloomberg, the sentences have been replaced with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The agency reports that California accounts for the largest number of people sentenced to death in the United States — 25% of the country's total death row population. The state's last execution took place two decades ago.
Newsom imposed a moratorium on executions in 2019, when he took office, and has now commuted the sentences of all those convicted. The politician considers the death penalty morally unacceptable.
"I am commuting these sentences because I firmly believe that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California's values, undermines the foundations of our legal system and diminishes every one of us," the governor said.
Newsom acknowledged that his decision runs counter to the position of voters in the state, who support the death penalty. The decision may also require review by the state Supreme Court.
Earlier, in Tennessee, a woman sentenced to death survived two lethal injections in the United States. Christa Pike had spent nearly 30 years awaiting execution. She was convicted of the brutal murder of a fellow student in 1995. Pike was to become the first woman executed in Tennessee since 1819. Pike's lawyers said she had been returned to prison. Since the execution attempt, she has been held in near-total isolation in the prison's medical unit.