Capital punishment in California exists in law, but in 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered death row to be dismantled. Still, 625 men and 20 women remain incarcerated with death sentences, facing the unlikely but possible prospect that under a different governor, they could be executed. About one-third of the condemned are Black (article available here).
Now, Santa Clara County Dist. Atty. Jeff Rosen, once a prosecutor who believed in capital punishment and one who rejects association with the progressive prosecutor movement, has asked courts to change the penalties of 14 men from his county who are on the state’s death row. But in a few separate cases, already completed last year, he has requested that they be given the chance of freedom.
Rosen is “the only prosecutor in California to have made such a blanket request.”
“[W]e are not confident that these sentences were attained without racial bias,” his office wrote in a motion. “We cannot defend these sentences, and we believe that implicit bias and structural racism played some role in the death sentence.”
Currently, about 35% of those on death row are Black, despite Black people making up only about 7% of California’s population. An additional 26% of death row inmates are Hispanic or Mexican. Overall, nearly 70% of death row inmates are people of color.