Gov. Gavin Newsom will sign an executive order Wednesday placing a moratorium on the death penalty for all 737 inmates on California’s death row, ensuring that no executions will take place while he is governor, an administration source has confirmed.

Newsom’s order also will withdraw the state’s lethal injection protocol and immediately close the execution chamber at San Quentin State Prison. The action, however, leaves intact all convictions and sentences, and does not provide for the release of any inmates, the source said.

“The intentional killing of another person is wrong. And as governor, I will not oversee the execution of any individual,” Newsom said in a prepared statement obtained by the Southern California News Group. The action can be undone by a future governor.

“I do not believe that a civilized society can claim to be a leader in the world as long as its government continues to sanction the premeditated and discriminatory execution of its people,” said the Democratic governor. “In short, the death penalty is inconsistent with our bedrock values and strikes at the very heart of what it means to be a Californian.”

Critics, however, say Newsom’s order undermines the will of the voters in California.

In November 2016, Californians passed a measure to speed up executions, the last of which occurred 13 years ago. Most of that measure, Proposition 66, was upheld by the state Supreme Court and a judge was reviewing California’s lethal injection protocol, which Newsom withdrew Wednesday.

As lieutenant governor, Newsom backed a competing ballot measure in 2016 to repeal the death penalty, which voters rejected.

“The arguments were fully and vigorously presented, and the people made their choice,” Kent Scheidegger, the legal director for the pro-death penalty Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, wrote in a December blog post. “They chose to mend it, not end it.”

Prosecutors: ‘Ill-considered’

The Association of Deputy District Attorneys on Tuesday blasted Newsom’s pending move.

“Governor Newsom, who supported the failed initiative to end the death penalty in 2006, is usurping the express will of California voters and substituting his personal preferences via this hasty and ill-considered moratorium on the death penalty,” said a statement by Michele Hanisee, president of the association that represents 1,000 prosecutors in Los Angeles County.

Still, Newsom has indicated he believes voters are not happy with the death penalty.

“In California, we have the largest death row of any place in the Western Hemisphere — more than 700 prisoners,” he said. “And we have spent $5 billion since 1978 to keep those individuals on death row.”

‘Significant leap’ for opponents

Natasha Minsker, a lawyer who worked on death penalty issues in the state for more than a decade at the ACLU, called Newsom’s order “a significant leap forward for the movement to end the death penalty, both in California and across the country.”

“We have been asking for a governor in California to show leadership on this issue for a long time,” she said in an interview.

Newsom’s order recalls his decision just a few weeks into his first term as mayor of San Francisco ordering city officials to marry same-sex couples in 2004 — a move that won him national attention but was ultimately overturned in the courts.

This time, he appears to be on more solid legal ground: The state constitution clearly allows governors to delay executions, Minsker said.

Notorious killers on death row

The last person executed in California was Clarence Ray Allen, 76, in 2006. Allen had been convicted of killing three people and, at the time, was the second oldest inmate to be executed in the United States.

Among some of the most notorious killers still awaiting execution in California are:

Kevin Cooper, an African-American convicted in the 1983 slayings of a Chino Hills couple, their child daughter and a neighbor boy. The conviction has been dogged for decades by claims that police planted evidence. Newsom signed an executive order in February calling for further DNA testing in the case.

Rodney James Alcala, 75, who was condemned in 2010 for five killings in the late 1970s, including a 12-year-old Huntington Beach girl. He later pleaded guilty to two more murders and received a life sentence in prison.

Randy Kraft, likely California’s most prolific serial killer. Kraft may have killed as many as 65 young men in Oregon, Michigan and California during a 13-year span that ended in 1983. He was convicted of killing 16 men.

Lawrence Bittaker, who was convicted in the kidnap, torture, rape and murder of five teenage girls plucked off South Bay and San Fernando Valley streets over a five-month period in 1979. Bittaker, who committed the killings with a partner, Roy Norris, is now 78. Norris escaped the death penalty by testifying against Bittaker.

California has the most people on death row, one in four of the nation’s condemned. Twenty-five death row inmates in California have exhausted all their appeals.

Newsom, in his prepared statement, said there were many reasons for blocking efforts to restart California’s death chamber.

Newsom: System ‘a failure’

“Our death penalty system has been — by any measure — a failure,” he said. “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.

“But most of all,” Newsom said, “the death penalty is absolute. Irreversible and irreparable in the event of human error.”

Since 1973, five of the condemned in California were found to be wrongfully convicted and exonerated.

Newsom argued the death penalty is unfair and unequally applied based on race and mental disability.

More than six in 10 people on California’s death row are people of color. Additionally, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, at least 18 of the 25 people executed in the United States in 2018 were mentally ill, brain injured, and/or had an IQ in the intellectually disabled range. Some had chronic serious childhood trauma, neglect, and/or abuse.

Said Newsom, “There’s a reason why, today, three out of four countries around the world have either abolished the death penalty or no longer use it. In America, we execute more human beings than any other democracy on earth. Just in 2017, the United States joined Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Pakistan, China and Egypt as the world’s top executioners.”

3 other states have moratoriums

Democratic governors in three other states — Oregon, Colorado and Pennsylvania — have put similar moratoriums on the death penalty in recent years. Washington governor and presidential candidate Jay Inslee also declared a hiatus on capital punishment in his state in 2014, but the state’s Supreme Court invalidated Washington’s death penalty altogether last year.

The newly elected Republican governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, also has repeatedly delayed several executions this year as his state tries to reform its lethal injection system, although he has not imposed a moratorium.

Newsom’s decision could elevate the debate over capital punishment to the national political stage as well. President Donald Trump has escalated his Twitter jabs at Newsom in recent months, and has professed his support for the death penalty.

California presidential hopeful and Sen. Kamala Harris also opposes the death penalty, and has already faced questions about her stances on the issue as state attorney general.

During the gubernatorial race last year, Newsom said he hoped to eventually put the death penalty before the voters again, and predicted that they would vote to abolish it.

“We need to have a more sustainable conversation with the public, and I would like to lead that,” he said in an April 2018 interview with the Bay Area News Group. “We haven’t had a governor, with respect, that’s led this conversation. There’s been a lot of timidity on the death penalty.”</s>Gov. Gavin Newsom will sign an executive order Wednesday preventing executions in California while he’s in office and giving a reprieve to the 737 people on the state’s death row.

The order also will withdraw California’s new lethal injection protocol and immediately close the execution chamber at San Quentin State Prison, an administration source said.

But Newsom isn’t planning to immediately commute the sentences of any inmates, which would take them off death row permanently. Instead, he’s putting in place a moratorium that could be reversed by a future governor once he leaves office.

“I do not believe that a civilized society can claim to be a leader in the world as long as its government continues to sanction the premeditated and discriminatory execution of its people,” Newsom plans to say in prepared remarks for Wednesday. “In short, the death penalty is inconsistent with our bedrock values and strikes at the very heart of what it means to be a Californian.”

Newsom’s move will immediately reignite the long-running debate over capital punishment in California, which currently has more people on death row than any other state and accounts for one fourth of the death row inmates in the nation.

California hasn’t executed an inmate since convicted triple murderer Clarence Allen in 2006 amid legal challenges to its lethal injection method. But in 2016, voters narrowly approved an initiative to speed up executions and rejected one that would have ended the practice. Newsom was one of the few major California officials to support the repeal proposition.

Twenty-five condemned inmates in California have exhausted all of their appeals and could be scheduled for execution soon without a reprieve from the governor. A judge currently is reviewing the state’s new lethal injection protocol, and if that protocol is approved, it would remove one of the last remaining barriers to an execution taking place.

Criminal justice reformers argue that there’s a mountain of evidence that capital punishment is unequally applied based on race and does little to make the general public safer. They point out that dozens of former death row inmates have been exonerated around the country, including Vicente Benavides Figueroa, 68, in California in April.

“This is going to be a significant leap forward for the movement to end the death penalty,” said Natasha Minsker, a lawyer who worked on capital punishment issues in California for more than a decade at the ACLU. “The death penalty in California is fundamentally unjust and unfair, and it’s bold leadership for Gavin Newsom not to just recognize that but to act on it.”

But Newsom’s moratorium is sure to invite a vitriolic response from proponents of the death penalty and some of the families of murder victims in the state.

Some of the most notorious Bay Area inmates on death row include Rodrigo Ortiz Paniagua, who was convicted of killing his pregnant girlfriend and their two daughters in Santa Clara County in 2005; Joseph Naso, a serial killer who murdered six women across northern California over a two-decade span; and Richard Allen Davis, whose death sentence for the 1996 kidnapping-murder of Petaluma 12-year-old Polly Klaas helped inspire the state’s three-strikes law.

Death penalty supporters have warned in recent months that any move to block executions would fly in the face of voters’ decision just over two years ago.

“The voters of the State of California support the death penalty,” said Michele Hanisee, president of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys, in a statement, accusing Newsom of “usurping the express will of California voters and substituting his personal preferences via this hasty and ill-considered moratorium.”

Newsom’s decision could also return the debate over capital punishment to the national political stage. President Trump has escalated his Twitter jabs at Newsom in recent months and has professed his support for the death penalty.

California presidential hopeful Sen. Kamala Harris also opposes the death penalty and already has faced questions about her stances on the issue as state attorney general.

Democratic governors in three other states — Oregon, Colorado and Pennsylvania — have enacted similar moratoriums on the death penalty in recent years. Washington governor and presidential candidate Jay Inslee also halted capital punishment in his state in 2014, but the state Supreme Court more recently invalidated Washington’s death penalty altogether.

The newly elected Republican governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, has also repeatedly delayed several executions this year as his state tries to reform its lethal injection system.

Newsom’s expected order recalls his decision just a few weeks into his first term as mayor of San Francisco in 2004 to grant marriage licenses for same-sex couples — a dramatic and sweeping move that won him national attention but was ultimately overturned in the courts.

This time, he appears to be on more solid legal ground: The California state constitution clearly allows governors to delay executions, Minsker said.

“There may be some legal challenges that continue, but Prop 66 is a statutory proposition, so that can’t trump the power of the governor under the constitution,” she said.

In the future, Newsom also could move to commute the sentences of some inmates from death to life in prison, changes that would be permanent and not subject to rollbacks by future governors. But the State Supreme Court must approve any commutation for an inmate with two or more felony convictions, which include about half of California’s death row population.

During his gubernatorial campaign, Newsom said he hoped to eventually put a death penalty repeal before the voters again and predicted that they would vote to abolish it.

“We need to have a more sustainable conversation with the public, and I would like to lead that,” he said in an interview with the Bay Area News Group last year. “We haven’t had a governor, with respect, that’s led this conversation. There’s been a lot of timidity on the death penalty.”

Anti-death penalty advocates pushed Newsom’s predecessor, Gov. Jerry Brown, to make a move on the issue over the course of his eight years in the governor’s office. Brown protested outside the gates of San Quentin State Prison in his 20’s as an inmate went to the gas chamber — but he refused to offer any commutations or reprieves to death row inmates, and never had to preside over an execution. He didn’t take a position on the 2016 repeal initiative.

“We have been asking for a governor in California to show leadership on this issue for a long time,” Minsker said.</s>Citing his moral conflict with capital punishment, California Gov. Gavin Newsom will sign an executive order Wednesday that places a moratorium on executions of the state’s 737 death row inmates.

The order will halt all executions performed at San Quentin State Prison while Newsom, a Democrat, is governor but leaves all convictions intact. A future governor can undo the order.

“The intentional killing of another person is wrong. And as governor, I will not oversee the execution of any individual,” Newsom said in a prepared statement obtained by the Southern California News Group.

Newsom has been a vocal opponent of the death penalty and has argued it is susceptible to human error. Many have criticized the death penalty as being racially biased and too expensive. Since 1973, 164 prisoners nationwide have been wrongly convicted and freed from death row, according to the Los Angeles Times.

NEW JERSEY MANSION MURDERS SPUR CALLS FOR STATE TO REINSTATE DEATH PENALTY

Newsom’s order comes just weeks after the bloody slaying of Bambi Larson, a 59-year-old San Jose resident who was found stabbed to death in her home. The suspect arrested in connection with Larson’s death is a 24-year-old illegal immigrant and gang member, authorities said, according to FOX 2 of the Bay Area.

The governor’s order also defies the wishes of California voters, who backed a 2016 measure to speed up executions. The governor previously backed failed measures in 2012 and 2016 to abolish the death penalty in the state. The last execution held in California occurred in 2006 for Clarence Ray Allen, 76, who was convicted of killing three people, the Los Angeles Daily News reported.

The Association of Deputy District Attorneys slammed the move, saying Newson was “usurping” the will of the voters.

“Governor Newsom, who supported the failed initiative to end the death penalty in 2006, is usurping the express will of California voters and substituting his personal preferences via this hasty and ill-considered moratorium on the death penalty,” said a statement by association president Michele Hanisee.

2 CALIFORNIA DEATH ROW INMATES FOUND DEAD INSIDE THEIR CELLS IN POSSIBLE SUICIDES

Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the pro-death penalty Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, told the Times Newsom’s actions are “an abuse of power” and that “he’s following in the footsteps of other governors who abused this power because they were frustrated by a law that they just personally disagreed with.”

Not everyone viewed Newsom’s pending actions as a negative. Kim Kardashian West praised the move in a series of tweets Tuesday.

“I have met with and am very supportive of Governor Newsom and his decision to help bring an end to the California Death Penalty. Racial bias and unfairness run deep throughout the justice system but especially when it comes to the death penalty,” she wrote.

Kardashian West has become an advocate for criminal justice reform in recent years, meeting with President Trump to discuss the issue and agreeing to pay the rent for a Tennessee inmate released from prison after federal sentencing reforms were put in place for five years.

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California has executed 13 inmates since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. In the decades since, 79 death row inmates have died of natural causes and 26 by suicide, according to the Times. The state has the most people on death row. Twenty-five inmates have exhausted their appeals, the Daily News reported.

“I do not believe that a civilized society can claim to be a leader in the world as long as its government continues to sanction the premeditated and discriminatory execution of its people,” Newsom said.</s>Defying voters, the Governor of California will halt all death penalty executions of 737 stone cold killers. Friends and families of the always forgotten VICTIMS are not thrilled, and neither am I! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 13, 2019

The death penalty is immoral, discriminatory, ineffective, and proven to be unequally applied. I applaud Governor @GavinNewsom for his decision to put a moratorium on this deeply flawed system of capital punishment in California. — Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) March 13, 2019

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed an executive order putting a moratorium on executions in the most populous state.Newsom signed the order Wednesday granting a reprieve to the state's 737 death row inmates for as long as the Democrat is governor. It doesn't change any convictions or sentences and won't allow anyone to be released from prison.Newsom says his views on the death penalty were shaped 40 years ago through his grandfather's and father's advocacy on behalf of a wrongfully convicted manHis order also repeals California's lethal injection protocols and closes the state's never-before-used death chamber at a state prison. California hasn't executed anyone since 2006.President Donald Trump says Newsom is "defying voters." California voters narrowly approved a ballot measure to speed up executions in 2016.Senator Kamala Harris has also responded.</s>California governor to sign executive order stopping state’s death penalty for now

(CNN) — In a bold stroke meant to keep California at the cutting edge of criminal justice, Gov. Gavin Newsom will sign an executive order Wednesday placing a moratorium on the death penalty in the Golden State.

The policy will serve as an instant reprieve for the 737 people on death row in California, which has the largest death row population in the nation. The Democrat’s order will immediately close the execution chamber at San Quentin State Prison and withdraw California’s lethal injection protocol. The order will not alter any current conviction or sentence, or lead to the release of any prisoner currently on death row.

With Newsom’s move, California joins Colorado, Pennsylvania and Oregon as the fourth state to place a moratorium on the death penalty, though the length and reasoning for the moratoriums vary from state to state. The expected decision was derided by President Donald Trump Wednesday morning, who tweeted that Newsom was “defying voters” and that the “Friends and families of the always forgotten VICTIMS are not thrilled, and neither am I!”

California’s executions were halted in 2006 when a condemned inmate challenged the state’s protocol for lethal injection, ensnaring California in legal challenges that continue today. But Newsom faced a deadline, because that legal process could soon come to an end. A judge is reviewing the latest execution protocol submitted by the state, and Newsom believed that its approval could come soon — clearing the way for executions to begin in California again.

Newsom has long opposed the death penalty, but has been wrestling with what action to take as governor. In remarks Wednesday, Newsom plans to note that 25 inmates on California’s death row have exhausted their legal appeals and “could soon be eligible for execution.”

Just last month, Newsom issued an executive order that allowed for new DNA testing of evidence in the high-profile case of death row inmate Kevin Cooper, who was sentenced in 1985 for the murders of four people and has exhausted his appeals. Cooper has long maintained his innocence, and former California Gov. Jerry Brown, another Democrat, agreed to some limited retesting of evidence in the case last year.

Since becoming governor, Newsom has been meeting with the families of victims, as well as law enforcement officials, while consulting with his legal team about what action to take.

Ultimately, Newsom decided the moratorium was in the best interest of the state, because he believes the death penalty “is inconsistent with our bedrock values and strikes at the very heart of what it means to be a Californian.”

In his speech on Wednesday, the governor will highlight the racial disparities in sentencing — noting that 6 in 10 prisoners on California’s death row are people of color — the cost of enforcing the death penalty and the number of innocent people who have been sentenced to death.

Since 1973, a total of 164 prisoners nationally — including five from California — have been freed after they were wrongfully convicted, according to “The Innocence List” maintained by The Death Penalty Information Center.

“Our death penalty system has been — by any measure — a failure,” Newsom plans to say in his remarks. “It has discriminated against defendants who are mentally ill, black and brown, or cannot afford expensive legal representation. It has provided no public safety benefit or value as a deterrent. It has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars. But most of all, the death penalty is absolute, irreversible and irreparable in the event of human error.”

“The intentional killing of another person is wrong, and as governor, I will not oversee the execution of any individual,” he plans to say.

In 2016 while serving as lieutenant governor, Newsom endorsed a failed California ballot measure that would have repealed the death penalty — an issue so controversial that then-Gov. Brown and then-Attorney General Kamala Harris did not take positions. Aides to Harris, now a Democratic US senator and 2020 presidential candidate, have said she felt that she had a duty to uphold the death penalty as attorney general, even though she personally opposed it. She also remained neutral on ballot measures as attorney general because she was responsible for writing the title and summary language for all propositions

At that time, Newsom said he understood that the issue “raises deeply felt passions on all sides” but he believed that Americans ultimately would look back on the death penalty “as an archaic mistake.”</s>California Governor Gavin Newsom will impose on Wednesday a moratorium on state executions and a temporary reprieve for all 737 inmates on death row in the state, the media reported.

According to the Washington Post, Newsom will sign an executive order later in the day, describing the death penalty as "inconsistent with our bedrock values".

California has not carried out any executions since 2006, as a series of court battles over execution methods have been waged. The order will give a reprieve from execution - though not release - to California's 737 death row inmates, about a quarter of the nation's population awaiting capital punishment.

It will also annual California's lethal injection protocol and close the execution chamber at San Quentin State Prison, where the state's most notorious criminals have been put to death.

The Governor took office in January and a death penalty moratorium was one of his campaign pledges.

"I do not believe that a civilized society can claim to be a leader in the world as long as its government continues to sanction the premeditated and discriminatory execution of its people," he said in a statement issued with the executive order.

"In short, the death penalty is inconsistent with our bedrock values and strikes at the very heart of what it means to be a Californian."

Two voter initiatives to end the death penalty in California narrowly failed to gain a majority in recent years, with 48 per cent support in 2012 and 47 per cent support in 2016. Governor Newsom supported both initiatives.

But a separate proposition voted on in 2016 won support for its demand to speed up executions in California.

The Governor does not have the power to abolish the state's 1978 death penalty legislation permanently. A repeal would require a popular vote in favour of the change. The next opportunity for such a ballot would be at the 2020 elections.

The reprieves Governor Newsom issues now will expire when he leaves office. His current term lasts until January 2023.

More than 900 people have been sentenced to death in California since 1978, but only 13 have been executed. Another 79 died of natural causes and a further 26 took their own lives, according to figures from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The death penalty is a legal punishment in 30 US states. Since 1976, Texas carried out the most executions (560), followed by Virginia (113) and Oklahoma (112). There are 2,738 inmates on death row in the US.</s>SACRAMENTO, Calif — The 737 inmates on California's largest-in-the-nation death row are getting a reprieve from Gov. Gavin Newsom, who plans to sign an executive order Wednesday placing a moratorium on executions.

Newsom also is withdrawing the lethal injection regulations that death penalty opponents already have tied up in courts and shuttering the new execution chamber at San Quentin State Prison that has never been used.

"The intentional killing of another person is wrong and as governor, I will not oversee the execution of any individual," he said in prepared remarks.

Newsom called the death penalty "a failure" that "has discriminated against defendants who are mentally ill, black and brown, or can't afford expensive legal representation." He also said innocent people have been wrongly convicted and sometimes put to death.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom answers a question from a reporter on Friday, Feb. 15, 2019, in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

California hasn't executed anyone since 2006, when Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor. And though voters in 2016 narrowly approved a ballot measure to speed up the punishment, no condemned inmate faced imminent execution.

Since California's last execution, its death row population has grown to house one of every four condemned inmates in the United States. They include Scott Peterson, whose trial for killing his wife Laci riveted the country, and Richard Davis, who kidnapped 12-year-old Polly Klaas during a slumber party and strangled her.

Newsom "is usurping the express will of California voters and substituting his personal preferences via this hasty and ill-considered moratorium on the death penalty," said Michele Hanisee, president of the Association of Deputy (Los Angeles County) District Attorneys.

While the governor's move is certain to be challenged in court, aides say his power to grant reprieves is written into the state Constitution and that he is not altering any convictions or allowing any condemned inmate a chance at an early release.

A governor needs approval from the state Supreme Court to pardon or commute the sentence of anyone twice convicted of a felony, and the justices last year blocked several clemency requests by former Gov. Jerry Brown that did not involve condemned inmates.

Other governors also have enacted moratoriums. Republican Illinois Gov. George Ryan was the first in 2000 and later was followed by Pennsylvania, Washington and Oregon. Illinois ultimately outlawed executions, as did Washington.

Newsom said the death penalty isn't a deterrent, wastes taxpayer dollars and is flawed because it is "irreversible and irreparable in the event of human error." It's also costly — California has spent $5 billion since 1978 on its death row, he said.

More than six in 10 condemned California inmates are minorities, which his office cited as proof of racial disparities in who is sentenced to die. Since 1973, five California inmates who were sentenced to death were later exonerated, his office said.

Brown also opposed the death penalty, but his administration moved to restart executions after voters acted in 2016 to allow the use of a single lethal injection and speed up appeals. His administration's regulations are stalled by challenges in both state and federal court, though those lawsuits may be halted now that Newsom is officially withdrawing the regulations.

Brown said he was satisfied with his record number of pardons and commutations, though he never attempted to commute a death sentence. He had focused on sweeping changes to criminal penalties and reducing the prison population.

"I've done what I want to do," Brown said shortly before leaving office, defending his decision not to endorse death penalty repeal efforts in 2012 and 2016. "I've carved out my piece of all this."

Democratic Assemblyman Marc Levine of Greenbrae plans to seek the two-thirds vote the Legislature requires to put another repeal measure on the 2020 ballot. Levine's district includes San Quentin State Prison. A repeal question also was on the ballot in 2016 with the question to speed up executions. It lost by 7 points while the other question was approved by 2 points.

Newsom's aides said it has not yet been decided what will become of the execution chamber, or whether corrections officials have been told to top preparing for executions, for instance by running drills.

Seventy-nine condemned California inmates have died of natural causes since the state reinstated capital punishment in 1978. Another 26 committed suicide. California has executed 13 inmates, while two were executed in other states.

Newsom's office said 25 condemned inmates have exhausted all of their appeals and could have faced execution if the courts approved the state's new lethal injection method.

Associated Press journalist Kathleen Ronayne contributed to this story.</s>Governor to Place Moratorium on Death Penalty in California

SACRAMENTO, Calif.—The 737 inmates on California’s largest-in-the-nation death row are getting a reprieve from Gov. Gavin Newsom, who plans to sign an executive order Wednesday placing a moratorium on executions.

Newsom also is withdrawing the lethal injection regulations that death penalty opponents already have tied up in courts and shuttering the new execution chamber at San Quentin State Prison that has never been used.

“The intentional killing of another person is wrong and as governor, I will not oversee the execution of any individual,” he said in prepared remarks.

Newsom called the death penalty “a failure” that “has discriminated against defendants who are mentally ill, black and brown, or can’t afford expensive legal representation.” He also said innocent people have been wrongly convicted and sometimes put to death.

California hasn’t executed anyone since 2006, when Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor. And though voters in 2016 narrowly approved a ballot measure to speed up the punishment, no condemned inmate faced imminent execution.

Since California’s last execution, its death row population has grown to house one of every four condemned inmates in the United States. They include Scott Peterson, whose trial for killing his wife Laci riveted the country, and Richard Davis, who kidnapped 12-year-old Polly Klaas during a slumber party and strangled her.

Newsom “is usurping the express will of California voters and substituting his personal preferences via this hasty and ill-considered moratorium on the death penalty,” said Michele Hanisee, president of the Association of Deputy (Los Angeles County) District Attorneys.

But Alison Parker, U.S. managing director at Human Rights Watch, praised Newsom’s “great courage and leadership in ending the cruel, costly, and unfair practice of executing prisoners,” calling for other states to follow California’s lead. The American Civil Liberties Union called it “a watershed moment in the fight for racial equity and equal justice for all.” Justin Brooks, director of the California Innocence Project, lauded Newsom for ending the risk of executing someone who is innocent.

Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which has been fighting in court to force the state to resume executions, said blocking Newsom’s move may be difficult.

“Reprieves, the governor does have the power to do that. That doesn’t make it the right thing to do,” Scheidegger said. “At this time I don’t see a legal challenge to the reprieve.” However, he said prohibiting corrections officials from preparing to carry out executions “is patently illegal” under the 2016 ballot measure.

Stanislaus County District Attorney Birgit Fladager, president of the California District Attorneys Association, also criticized Newsom for circumventing the will of a majority of voters.

But he had support from Democratic lawmakers including Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco and Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez of San Diego, who praised Newsom for doing “what’s right, even when it’s tough,” in Gonzalez’s words.

Aides said Newsom’s power to grant reprieves is written into the state Constitution and that he is not altering any convictions or allowing any condemned inmate a chance at an early release.

A governor needs approval from the state Supreme Court to pardon or commute the sentence of anyone twice convicted of a felony, and the justices last year blocked several clemency requests by former Gov. Jerry Brown that did not involve condemned inmates.

Other governors also have enacted moratoriums. Republican Illinois Gov. George Ryan was the first in 2000 and later was followed by Pennsylvania, Washington and Oregon. Illinois ultimately outlawed executions, as did Washington.

Newsom said the death penalty isn’t a deterrent, wastes taxpayer dollars and is flawed because it is “irreversible and irreparable in the event of human error.” It’s also costly — California has spent $5 billion since 1978 on its death row, he said.

More than six in 10 condemned California inmates are minorities, which his office cited as proof of racial disparities in who is sentenced to die. Since 1973, five California inmates who were sentenced to death were later exonerated, his office said.

Brown also opposed the death penalty, but his administration moved to restart executions after voters acted in 2016 to allow the use of a single lethal injection and speed up appeals. His administration’s regulations are stalled by challenges in both state and federal court, though those lawsuits may be halted now that Newsom is officially withdrawing the regulations.

Brown said he was satisfied with his record number of pardons and commutations, though he never attempted to commute a death sentence. He had focused on sweeping changes to criminal penalties and reducing the prison population.

“I’ve done what I want to do,” Brown said shortly before leaving office, defending his decision not to endorse death penalty repeal efforts in 2012 and 2016. “I’ve carved out my piece of all this.”

Democratic Assemblyman Marc Levine of Greenbrae plans to seek the two-thirds vote the Legislature requires to put another repeal measure on the 2020 ballot. Levine’s district includes San Quentin State Prison. A repeal question also was on the ballot in 2016 with the question to speed up executions. It lost by 7 points while the other question was approved by 2 points.

Newsom’s aides said it has not yet been decided what will become of the execution chamber, or whether corrections officials have been told to top preparing for executions, for instance by running drills.

Seventy-nine condemned California inmates have died of natural causes since the state reinstated capital punishment in 1978. Another 26 committed suicide. California has executed 13 inmates, while two were executed in other states.

Newsom’s office said 25 condemned inmates have exhausted all of their appeals and could have faced execution if the courts approved the state’s new lethal injection method.

Associated Press journalist Kathleen Ronayne contributed to this story.</s>Governor Gavin Newsom will Wednesday impose a moratorium on carrying out the death penalty in California, granting temporary reprieve to the 737 inmates on death row -- the largest such group in the United States.

Newsom is a Democrat who took office in January and a long-standing opponent of the death penalty, which was last carried out in California in 2006.

"The death penalty is inconsistent with our bedrock values and strikes at the very heart of what it means to be a Californian," Newsom will say, according to prepared remarks from his office.

"The intentional killing of another person is wrong. And as Governor, I will not oversee the execution of any individual," he will say.

The governor plans to sign an executive order to block the death penalty in his state. It will also withdraw California's lethal injection protocol and close the execution chamber at San Quentin prison, his office said.

It does not provide for the release of any death row inmates from prison.

A quarter of all those on death row in the United States are in California, according to the governor's office. Twenty-five people on California's death row have exhausted all of their appeals.

Human Rights Watch said that with the governor's decision, California continues a trend in the United States away from putting people to death.

The state joins Colorado, Oregon, and Pennsylvania, which have similar bans, and 20 states that have abolished the death penalty, it said.

"Governor Newsom has demonstrated great courage and leadership in ending the cruel, costly, and unfair practice of executing prisoners," said Alison Parker, US managing director at Human Rights Watch.

"Californians should be proud their state has taken a stand to end state-sanctioned killing and uphold the human rights of all people."</s>SACRAMENTO, Calif. – California Governor Gavin Newsom plans to sign an executive order to place a moratorium on the state’s use of the death penalty. That will mean the state’s execution chamber at San Quentin State Prison will be shut down for the time being.

It’s a conviction Gavin Newsom has long held. In 2013 he stated, “I think we should repeal the death penalty.”

Now, as California’s newly elected governor, Newsom plans to put a moratorium on the death penalty in the Golden State.

Over the years, he’s made his stance on corporal punishment known. First, the issues of race and mental health: “it’s not a deterrent,” Newsom said. “There are racial components of that.”

The governor argues that the death sentence is unequally and unfairly used on the mentally disabled and people of color.

Another sticking point for Newsom is the possibility of innocent people being put to death. “Every year, we read about this person, that person, another person that were exonerated,” Newsom said. “DNA tests prove they were innocent.”

But the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation says that’s an outdated concern. CJLF representative Kent Scheidegger said, “It is less today than it was… say 15 years ago with all the greater scrutiny we have on forensic science.”

And then there’s the financial impact. The governor’s office says the death penalty system has cost California $4 billion since 1978. Of all the states, California has the most people on death row.

“We don’t use the death penalty today,” Newsom said. “We are warehousing folks.”

Yet, death penalty proponents argue that keeping people on death row through several years of appeals is what costs so much. Scheidegger explained, “In a capital case where there’s no doubt who did it, which is most capital cases, you can get it done in 6 years.”

By signing an executive order, Newsom will join governors of Colorado, Pennsylvania, Washington and Oregon who also used their power to suspend or delay executions.

Former Oregon governor John Kitzhaber said, “I do not believe those executions made us safer.” That’s a belief Governor Newsom also shares.

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It is reported that California Governor Gavin Newsom will sign an executive order placing a moratorium on the death penalty for all 737 inmates on California's death row, ensuring that no executions will take place while he is governor.