San Joaquin County’s district attorney says he won’t hesitate to seek the death penalty in certain criminal cases despite Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decision to commute the sentences of all of California’s death row inmates.
In an open letter to all Californians on Thursday, Newsom said he was exercising his constitutional clemency authority to commute the sentences of 548 inmates to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The county’s chief prosecutor, Ron Freitas, condemned the termed-out governor’s action as a “mass erasure of justice” and a “slap in the face” to victims.
In a statement, Freitas said the decision puts aside the work of juries who made the difficult decision to impose death sentences and that of California voters who support the death penalty for serious crimes.
Newsom’s mass commutation included four death row inmates from San Joaquin County. Besides those who have already been sentenced, Frietas’ office is currently prosecuting a serial murder case in Stockton in which he has vowed to press for the death penalty if the defendant, Wesley Brownlee, is convicted.
Newsom’s decision comes at a time when support for the death penalty has been weakened by the botched Sept. 30 execution of a convicted murderer in Tennessee. Two injections failed to kill Christa Pike, who is in solitary confinement in the infirmary of a Nashville rehabilitation center as she recovers from the execution attempt.
Pike’s case precedes another high-profile condemned inmate. Former Army Maj. Nidal Hasan is scheduled to be executed by a military firing squad next month, an event that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth had planned to live stream until the idea was nixed by President Donald Trump. Hasan killed 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009.
Newsom said in his open letter that while many Californians believe in death for those who commit horrendous crimes, “the state cannot morally kill them.” He said his decision was in keeping with his longstanding opposition to capital punishment, including the moratorium he placed on executions in 2019.
He called it the most difficult decision that he has made as governor.
“By every measure, California’s system for administering the death penalty is a failure,” he wrote. “It has not been and cannot be fairly applied and has resulted in the conviction of innocent people.”
Freitas, however, shot down Newsom’s arguments.
“It invalidates the exhausting, emotionally wrenching work of our citizens who sat on juries, weighed horrific evidence, and delivered lawful verdicts,” he said. “Most unforgivably, it is a slap in the face to victims and their families. This decision does not bind wounds; it tears them wide open, all over again.”
Four men who were convicted in San Joaquin County are among the death row inmates whose sentences are being commuted.
They are:
William Choyce, 72, who was sentenced in 2008. He was convicted of the rape and murders of three women in Stockton and Oakland.
Mao Hin, 42, a gang member sentenced in 2005 for the killing of a man during a robbery in Stockton’s American Legion Park.
Danny Horning, 68, sentenced in 1995 for killing a fish farmer and marijuana dealer who lived in a rural section of Stockton. Parts of the victim’s body were recovered from the San Joaquin River and a .22-caliber bullet was found in his brain.
Angelo Melendez, 68, sentenced in 2000 for the murder of man during the robbery of his home.