02 April 2019 :

Poll Shows Most Californians Agree With Gavin Newsom’s Death Penalty Opposition. A new poll found a record high percentage of Californians are against the death penalty for murder - showing that public opinion in the state aligns with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) recent decision to place a moratorium on the practice. In a survey released Wednesday by the Public Policy Institute of California, 62 % of adults in the state who were asked to choose a penalty for 1st-degree murder chose life imprisonment without parole over the death penalty, which 31 % of adults supported. Support for the death penalty has dropped dramatically since 2000, when California adults were about evenly split on the issue (49 % in favor of the death penalty, 47 % in favor of life imprisonment), and even since 2012, when 55 % of respondents supported life imprisonment versus 38 % supporting the death penalty. Earlier this month, Newsom signed an executive order suspending the death penalty in California, calling the practice “immoral” and saying it discriminates against people of color and poor people. The governor halted executions for the 737 inmates on death row in the state, which houses 25 % of the nation’s condemned inmates - the largest death row population in the U.S. However, California hasn’t executed anyone since 2006 due to legal challenges.