Gavin Newsom on Crime

	Gavin Newsom on Crime S.F. Mayor; former Gov. cand.

Bolster police, more prosecutors, get guns off the street

Bolstering law enforcement and local response to stop and apprehend criminals.
More prosecutors to hold perpetrators accountable.
Getting guns and drugs off our streets--creating a new statewide gun buyback program, holding the gun industry accountable with nation-leading legislation, and intercepting drugs at the border.

Source: 2022 State of the State Address to California legislature , Feb 10, 2022

Moratorium on death penalty; disassembled death chamber

On March 13, 2019, Governor Newsom called a press conference to announce that he was taking the dramatic step of imposing a moratorium on executions. No one would be executed as long as he was governor. Newsom underscored that order by directing that the death chamber be disassembled, its various parts trucked to a warehouse. At the time, California had 737 condemned inmates.

Newsom's executive order did not abolish the death penalty. Nor did it empty death row. A constitutional amendment making it the law and approved by voters in 1972 remains in place, though it is like a zombie. As of this writing, California has 691 condemned men, and 20 condemned women. Their sentences are in limbo. None will die at the hands of the state so long as Newsom is Governor.

Source: Kamala's Way, by Dan Morain, p. 97 , Jan 12, 2021

Cut administrative fees on people in criminal justice system

Legislative Summary: AB1869: Ends the harmful and costly collection of 23 administrative fees imposed against people in the criminal system. By eliminating these fees, California will dramatically reduce the suffering caused by court- ordered debt and enhance the economic security and wellness of populations with system involvement.

Legislative Outcome:Passed Assembly 59-17-3 on Aug/31/20; passed Senate 30-7-3 on Aug/31/20; Signed by Governor Gavin Newsom on Sep/18/20

Source: California Legislative voting record AB1869 , Sep 18, 2020

Spared 737 people on California's death row

As the most populous state and the country's biggest economy, Newsom's actions carry outsize weight--and are guaranteed outsize publicity.

Consider the national attention it garnered when Newsom signed an executive order in March halting executions-- sparing 737 people on California's death row. Witness the proclamation his office wrote last month "welcoming women to California to fully exercise their reproductive rights" after a wave of conservative states took steps to limit abortion. Newsom is outspoken on immigration, traveling to El Salvador earlier this year in his first international trip as governor.

"We're going to get it,'' Newsom insists. "We're committed to universal health care. Universal health care means everybody--We will lead a massive expansion of health care, and that's a major deviation from the past.''

Source: Politico.com on 2018 California Gubernatorial race , Jun 17, 2019

Moratorium on the California death penalty

A "yes" vote supported repealing the death penalty and making life without the possibility of parole the maximum punishment for murder.
A "no" vote opposed this measure repealing the death penalty.
On March 13, 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed an executive order placing a moratorium on the death penalty. He said, "The intentional killing of another person is wrong and as Governor, I will not oversee the execution of any individual. Our death penalty system has been, by all measures, a failure. It has discriminated against defendants who are mentally ill, black and brown, or can't afford expensive legal representation. It has provided no public safety benefit or value as a deterrent. It has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars. Most of all, the death penalty is absolute. It's irreversible and irreparable in the event of human error."

Source: Ballotpedia.org on California ballot measure voting records , Mar 13, 2019

Death penalty is ineffective, irreversible and immoral

Gov. Gavin Newsom put a moratorium on the death penalty in California Wednesday, sparing the lives of more than 700 death-row inmates. Saying the death penalty is "ineffective, irreversible and immoral," he signed an executive order granting reprieves to all 737 Californians awaiting executions--a quarter of the country's death row inmates.

His action comes three years after California voters rejected an initiative to end the death penalty, instead passing a measure to speed up executions. Newsom said the death penalty system has discriminated against mentally ill defendants and people of color, has not made the state safer and has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars. "You, as taxpayers--you have spent $5 billion since we reinstated the death penalty in this state," he said. "What have we gotten for that?"

But he made clear that he simply believes killing other people is wrong. "If you rape, we don't rape," he said. "I think if someone kills, we don't kill.

Source: Modesto Bee on 2018 California Gubernatorial race , Mar 12, 2019

2016: Respect state referendum on death penalty; 2019: Don't

Newsom has long opposed the death penalty. While campaigning for a measure to repeal the death penalty in 2016, he told The Modesto Bee editorial board he would "be accountable to the will of the voters," if he were elected governor. "I would not get my personal opinions in the way of the public's right to make a determination of where they want to take us" on the death penalty, he said.

Newsom said that before he took office, discussing the death penalty was an "intellectual" exercise. Now that he has the power to allow executions, he said, it's an emotional decision: he can't be party to the system and still sleep at night. "It's not an abstract question any longer," he said. "I cannot sign off on executing hundreds of human beings."

The moratorium will be in place for the duration of Newsom's time in office. After that, a future governor could decide to resume executions. He told reporters last month that the prospect of executions resuming has been weighing on him.