Riverside County DA and Sheriff Blast Death-Row Commutations Covering 87 County Cases
Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin and Sheriff Chad Bianco, in Riverside County, California, issued separate statements on November 5 criticizing Governor Gavin Newsom's decision to commute all 548 of the state's death sentences to life without parole. According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, 87 of those cases were prosecuted in Riverside County - one of the largest county shares in the state.
Hestrin said the Governor's Office gave county prosecutors no advance notice and did not consult victims' families, many of whom learned from news reports that the killers in their cases would no longer face execution. Bianco said his office stands with victims' families and called the move a bypass of jury verdicts affirmed through years of appeals.
The Inland Empire accounts for 127 of the commuted sentences, including 40 from San Bernardino County, whose district attorney, Jason Anderson, also criticized the decision. State corrections data indicate about 89 of the Inland Empire prisoners hold multiple felony convictions, meaning their commutations - roughly 70 percent of the local cases - require review by the California Supreme Court before they take effect.
Newsom's open letter called the death penalty "unjust, error-prone, and incompatible with California's values." The Riverside DA's office said it will track the Supreme Court review case by case and keep notifying victims' families. California has not carried out an execution since 2006 and has had a gubernatorial moratorium since 2019.
(Source: Riverside County District Attorney's Office)
Source: Riverside County District Attorney's Office
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图片来源：Wikimedia Commons「File:Riverside Superior Court Hall.jpg」（Brien Clark 摄，CC BY-SA 2.5） Image: Wikimedia Commons "File:Riverside Superior Court Hall.jpg" (by Brien Clark, CC BY-SA 2.5)
