L.A. Public Defender García, Statewide Advocacy Leaders Renew Call for Universal Clemency

SARAMENTO — LA Public Defender Ricardo D. García June 30 joined civil rights advocates, faith leaders, and community organizations at the California State Capitol to call for universal clemency for everyone on California’s death row. The event came as California reflects on five decades of a death penalty system that has proven costly, arbitrary, and irreversible.

“As public defenders, we see firsthand how profoundly unjust our criminal legal system is. In California, this system is deeply stained by systemic racism, flaws that cannot be undone when the punishment is death,” said García. “Granting clemency to every person on death row is not an act of leniency; it is an acknowledgment that a system this flawed should never have the power to take a life. It is the only just response to decades of evidence showing that the death penalty has failed.” 

The death penalty disproportionately targets people of color, people living in poverty, and individuals whose cases depended on the county in which they were prosecuted rather than the severity of the charges. Los Angeles County has long been the primary driver of California’s death row population, sentencing more people to death than any other county in the state.

“Our nearly fifty-year experiment with the death penalty has demonstrated that capital punishment is an abject failure on every level. The state has spent billions on a policy that has been applied in a racially discriminatory manner, has risked the execution of the innocent, and has not advanced public safety in any meaningful way. It is time for it to end,” said Abdi Soltani, Executive Director of the ACLU of Northern California.      

The gathering featured a 20-foot banner reading, “Gov. Newsom: Commute All Death Sentences,” 565 LED candles representing every person currently on California’s death row, and more than 25,000 petition signatures calling for universal clemency. Faith leaders also delivered a letter signed by more than 130 clergy members urging the governor to act.