District attorney Dan Dow sent a letter to governor Gavin Newsom regarding speculation the governor may implement a blanket commutation of all 563 death sentences in California.
The commutation would reduce a prisoner’s capital punishment to a less severe penalty, typically life in prison without possibility of parole. Dan Dow’s letter says a blanket commutation “would be a slap in the face to every special-circumstance murder victim and loved ones they left behind. Justice is always individualized.” Dan Dow explains that every death sentence in California required a first-degree murder conviction, at least one special circumstance found true beyond a reasonable doubt, and a separate penalty phase in which a jury weighed the aggravating and mitigating evidence and chose death. Dow says a single order commuting all of them “would set aside hundreds of individual arguments without examining facts of even one.”
