Death Penalty News

Florida has executed 38 people under Gov. Ron DeSantis in the past two years alone, by far the most in the U.S. and the most in Florida history. Among the more formidable responsibilities Byron Donalds will inherit upon being sworn in as governor of Florida in January is signing execution warrants once death-row inmates’ appeals and executive clemency processes have concluded.

Texas man who killed 3 children is put to death, hours after an Oklahoma execution James Pavatt was put to death in Oklahoma for Rob Andrew’s killing. In Texas, John Allen Rubio was executed for the deaths of Julissa Quesada, John E. Rubio, and Mary Jane Rubio.  A Texas man convicted of fatally stabbing and beheading 3 young children in a squalid, windowless apartment in 2003 was executed Thursday evening, hours after Oklahoma put another man to death. 

The state of Florida has executed 38 people in the past two years, by far the most of any state in the nation. No state has executed more death row inmates over the past two years than Florida, but with a change of administrations taking place in January, anti-death penalty advocates are calling on Gov.-elect Byron Donalds to pause on any further executions. The Rev. Jeff Hood is spiritual adviser to two men scheduled to be executed within the next month. He is urging Donalds to commit to a six-month moratorium between Jan. 5, when he takes office, and July 5.

The U.S. was preparing to carry out two executions on Thursday, one in Oklahoma and one in Texas. In Texas, the condemned man is John Allen Rubio, 46, who is set to be put to death at the state prison in Huntsville. He was convicted of beheading three young children he was raising in a 2003 killing that rattled a community along the U.S.-Mexico border. The other man facing execution is James Pavatt, 73, who is set to die by lethal injection at Oklahoma's state penitentiary in McAlester.

Gov. Mike DeWine is considering whether to remove people from Ohio's death row before he leaves office in January. The Ohio Parole Board notified county prosecutors that it will review the cases of at least five people on death row in the coming weeks. The notices came months after DeWine called on state lawmakers to end the death penalty, arguing the system is slow, expensive and doesn't deter crime. DeWine said Monday that while he’s looking at commuting some death-penalty sentences before leaving office in January, he won’t follow California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s lead by issuing a blanket commutation for all 106 Ohio Death Row inmates.

The death penalty remains an option in California as local prosecutors defy Newsom’s clemency move (DPN) — Prosecutors across California have pledged to continue seeking the death penalty in future cases even after Governor Gavin Newsom announced mass commutations converting all 548 existing death sentences to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. This action, the largest such clemency in U.S. history, leaves the death penalty itself intact under state law. Voters have twice rejected measures to abolish it, and district attorneys in several counties argue that the severity of certain murders still warrants capital charges. They intend to pursue them where the facts support it, regardless of the governor’s decision on prior sentences.

California Governor Gavin Newsom announced today , November 5, 2026, that he is commuting the death sentences of all 548 people on the state’s death row, granting the largest mass clemency in American history. In his statement announcing the decision, Gov. Newsom said, “I take this action because I firmly believe that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values, undermines the foundations of our legal system, and diminishes all of us.”

Man convicted of 2004 killing is put to death in Florida’s 19th execution this year, tying a record Florida carried out a record-tying 19th execution of the year in an unusual instance of 3 states administering the death penalty on the same day. Jesse Guardado was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. following a 3-drug injection at a state prison in Starke. He had pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing 75-year-old Jackie Malone inside her Walton County home in 2004 before stealing her jewelry box, $80, and other valuables to buy drugs. The woman had helped him get a job and housing.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, in one of his last acts, commuted the sentences of all prisoners with death sentences, calling capital punishment morally objectionable. That’s about 1/4 of death sentences nationwide.  Gov. Gavin Newsom of California moved to spare the lives of all 548 prisoners on the state’s death row on Thursday in the largest mass commutation of death sentences in modern American history.  Mr. Newsom said he made the decision because he finds capital punishment morally objectionable. He reduced every death sentence to life in prison without parole, a sweeping move that will require a review by the state’s highest court in some cases and could draw legal challenges. 

Johnny Morales struggled to find sleep. He dozed off for a few moments, but officers came to his death row cell and woke him a little after midnight. They needed to inventory and box up his belongings. He was leaving San Quentin.  Hands cuffed behind his back, he walked across the empty upper yard in the dim gray hours before daylight. An officer walked alongside him step for step, black latex-gloved fingers holding onto Morales’s arm. For almost 20 years, Morales could only experience the world outside his 4-by-11 foot cell in the condemned housing unit like this—chained and escorted by officers. Security protocols required all death row residents be handcuffed or shackled any time they were out in open space with staff.

SACRAMENTO—Democrat Xavier Becerra defended the death penalty while serving as California’s attorney general, a punishment his office actively sought in the case of a gunman convicted of an Orange County mass shooting, but as the front-running candidate for governor, he has vowed to block executions if elected in November. Becerra said he will extend the blanket reprieve for all death row inmates that Gov. Gavin Newsom enacted by executive order in 2019, saying he supported “moving our state away from a costly, flawed system that disproportionately impacts Black and brown communities and too often gets it wrong.”

February 21, 2006, a California court’s deci­sion effec­tive­ly halt­ed the planned exe­cu­tion of Michael Angelo Morales, mark­ing the start of California’s 20-year mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tion sched­ul­ing and throw­ing into the spot­light the ten­sion between physi­cian par­tic­i­pa­tion in exe­cu­tions and their pledge to show ​“ the utmost respect for life .” " The events sur­round­ing Morales’s impend­ing fate brought to the sur­face the long-run­ning schism between law and med­i­cine, rais­ing the ques­tion of whether any ben­e­fi­cial con­nec­tion between the pro­fes­sions ever exist­ed in the exe­cu­tion con­text. History shows it sel­dom did. Decades of botched exe­cu­tions prove it. " — Professor Deborah Denno, The Lethal Injection Quandary: How Medicine Has Dismantled the Death Penalty

On the 20th anniversary of the execution of Clarence Ray Allen, civil rights advocates are urging California to make his execution the last by permanently ending the state’s death penalty. An article from The Sacramento Bee reports that advocates are calling on Gavin Newsom to begin the legal process to halt the sentences of nearly 600 people currently on death row.  On Jan. 17, 2006, at 12:38 a.m., the state of California executed Allen, 76, by lethal injection inside San Quentin State Prison. He had been convicted of three counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances and was sentenced to death in 1982. 

On January 17, 2006, California exe­cut­ed Clarence Ray Allen — the last per­son put to death by the state. Two decades lat­er, California’s death row pop­u­la­tion has fall­en to 580 pris­on­ers , down from its peak near 750 in the mid-2010s . In the time since Mr. Allen’s exe­cu­tion, the death penal­ty in California has seen sus­tained scruti­ny as con­cerns with racial dis­crim­i­na­tion, inno­cence, and costs con­tin­ue to grow. Governor Gavin Newsom has placed a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions, death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers have been moved to less restric­tive con­di­tions in gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion, and advo­cates have urged the gov­er­nor to grant mass clemency.

A man sentenced to death for the 1980 rape and murder of a Seal Beach woman died in prison on Monday, Dec. 22 at the age of 80, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced Wednesday.  Benjamin W. Watta, formerly of Long Beach, was found unresponsive in his cell at Pelican Bay State Prison in Crescent City around 11 a.m. on Monday during a count and pronounced dead by paramedics just after 11:30 a.m., the corrections agency said. The Del Norte County Coroner will determine his cause of death. 

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Lyle Menendez was denied parole Friday, a day after his younger brother Erik received the same recommendation by a California state board. Their separate hearings this week come nearly 30 years after the brothers were convicted of first-degree murder for the 1989 killings of their parents. They were sentenced to life in prison without parole in 1996. But after a Los Angeles judge reduced their sentences to 50 years to life in May, they immediately became eligible for parole under California law because they were under age 26 when they committed their crimes.

Gov. Gavin Newsom still has a year and a half left in office, but advocates are starting their call now for him to commute, or reduce, all death sentences in California. The state has 585 people sentenced to death.  Throughout his time in the top office, Newsom has repeatedly spoken out against the death penalty system, calling it “a failure” that discriminates based on race and wealth with “no public safety benefit or value as a deterrent.”

SAN FRANCISCO – The Los Angeles Times recently profiled the experiences of several individuals formerly housed on California’s death row—Bob Williams, Kevin Bernoudy, David Carpenter, and Cathy Sarinana—exploring how their lives have changed following historic policy shifts under Governor Gavin Newsom’s administration. Bob Williams, now 49, spent more than half his life in isolation on San Quentin’s death row. At age 18, he raped and murdered 40-year-old Mary Breck in Kern County in 1994. Just a day earlier, he had broken into her home and stolen credit cards. He claimed he returned to give them back but instead strangled her. Williams was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death.

Decades after they were sentenced to life without parole for murdering their parents, the Menendez brothers may have a route to freedom. But what is their case, is there new evidence and why has a decision been delayed? The Menendez brothers, who were convicted of killing their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989, will soon find out if they can be released from prison. Lyle Menendez, 56, and his 53-year-old brother Erik are serving life in prison without parole for the shotgun murders of their father and mother - Jose and Kitty Menendez.

Last year, California imposed more death sentences than any state other than Florida, Texas, and Alabama. While the numbers of sentences were not large by historical standards, that’s truly unusual company for the Golden State. Indeed, when Americans think about the death penalty, they almost invariably think first of Texas, not California. For decades, the Lone Star State was the death penalty capital of the United States. And there was good reason for why it earned that label. Since 1982, Texas has executed 591 people, far more than any other state. Indeed, in that period, a single Texas county, Harris County, “was responsible for more executions than any state except Texas.”