California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Nov. 5 that he plans to commute the death sentences of 548 people on the state’s death row, replacing them with life in prison without parole.
In an open letter, Newsom said he knew the decision would anger some people and cause pain for victims’ families who oppose it. He described life without parole as the harshest sentence he could legally impose and the state could ethically carry out.
The announcement does not automatically change every sentence. California law requires approval from the state Supreme Court to commute the sentences of people with multiple felony convictions, a category that includes hundreds of death row inmates.
California’s condemned inmates include people convicted of notorious murders, among them:
Richard Allen Davis
In 1993, Davis broke into a home in Petaluma and abducted 12-year-old Polly Klaas, who was having a sleepover with two friends. He strangled her and left her body in a remote area near Cloverdale.
Davis was sentenced to death in 1996. His earlier crimes helped spur the creation of California’s “Three Strikes” law.
Joseph Naso
Naso killed at least four women in Contra Costa, Marin and Yuba counties between 1977 and 1994. He was dubbed the “Alphabet Killer” because he targeted women whose first and last names began with the same letters.
A Marin County judge sentenced him to death in 2013.
Cary Stayner
In February 1999, Stayner killed four people near Yosemite National Park. He murdered Carole Sund, 42, her 15-year-old daughter Juli, and their family friend, 16-year-old Silvina Pelosso. Sund and Pelosso were also sexually assaulted.
Months later, Stayner beheaded Joie Armstrong, a 26-year-old nature guide. In 2002, he was sentenced to death for the killings of Sund and the two girls. He was already serving a life sentence for Armstrong’s murder.
Chester Turner
Between 1987 and 1998, Turner raped and murdered low-income women in South Los Angeles, often leaving their bodies in alleys or vacant lots. Investigators connected him to the victims through a DNA database match, and he was arrested in 2003.
Known as the “Southside Slayer,” Turner targeted women in an area along South Figueroa Street. He received a death sentence in 2007 for killing 10 women, followed by another in 2014 for the murders of four more.
Christopher Cheary
In 2011, Cheary raped, tortured and killed Sophia Acosta, his girlfriend’s 3-year-old daughter, while babysitting her and her sister at an apartment in Exeter. Sophia’s mother, who was not charged, reported the crime after finding the child unconscious with injuries to her head.
Medical staff testified that Sophia had internal injuries and signs of sexual torture. Cheary was convicted in 2016 and sentenced to death the following year.
Randy Kraft
From 1971 to 1983, Kraft raped, tortured and killed at least 16 hitchhikers and young men across Southern California. Authorities believe the number of victims may have exceeded 60.
Investigators found a coded list of victims in Kraft’s vehicle, earning him the name “Scorecard Killer.” His crimes came to light after California Highway Patrol officers stopped him in 1983 and found the body of Marine Terry Lee Gambrelin in the front passenger seat.
Authorities connected 43 victims to the coded entries but charged Kraft with 16 murders. He was sentenced to death in 1989.
Isauro Aguirre
In 2013, Aguirre and his girlfriend, Pearl Fernandez, tortured and killed Fernandez’s 8-year-old son, Gabriel, at their home in Palmdale. The abuse lasted eight months and included withholding food, beatings, forcing Gabriel to eat cat feces and locking him in a cabinet with a sock in his mouth.
Aguirre was sentenced to death in 2018. Fernandez received life in prison without parole.
Charles Ng
Between 1983 and 1985, Ng abducted, tortured and murdered at least 11 people at a remote Calaveras County cabin known as “The Castle.” His accomplice, Leonard Lake, died by suicide during a police standoff in 1985.
An Orange County judge sentenced Ng to death in 1989.
David Carpenter
Carpenter, known as the “Trailside Killer,” raped and murdered at least seven hikers in Marin County and Santa Cruz between 1980 and 1981.
He was sentenced to death for the Santa Cruz murders in 1984 and received another death sentence in 1988 for the Marin County crimes.
Cherie Rhoades
Rhoades, a former leader of a small Northern California tribe, fatally shot four people and tried to kill two others during a tribal meeting in 2014. The dispute centered on her eviction.
She was sentenced to death in 2017.
