The death penalty in California is legal but currently frozen. Governor Gavin Newsom’s March 2019 executive order halted all executions, closed the death chamber at San Quentin, and withdrew the state’s lethal injection protocol, yet prosecutors can still seek capital charges and juries can still return death verdicts. Roughly 575 to 600 people remain under a sentence of death, and no one has been executed since January 2006.
What the Moratorium Does
Executive Order N-09-19 grants a reprieve to every person on California’s death row.1Governor of California. Governor Gavin Newsom Orders a Halt to the Death Penalty in California A reprieve is a temporary suspension of a sentence. It is not a pardon or commutation. No one has been released, no conviction has been reversed, and no sentence has been reduced because of the order. The state simply cannot carry out an execution while the reprieve is in effect.
Two other pieces of the order matter for the future. The San Quentin execution chamber was closed. California’s lethal injection protocol was withdrawn.1Governor of California. Governor Gavin Newsom Orders a Halt to the Death Penalty in California Together, these mean that even if a future governor revoked the moratorium tomorrow, the state would need to adopt a new, legally compliant execution protocol before scheduling anyone’s execution. That process has repeatedly collapsed in the past.
Because the moratorium is an executive action rather than a statute, it lasts only as long as the sitting governor wants it to. A successor can lift it without going to the Legislature.
Who Can Be Sentenced to Death
Capital charges in California sit inside two layers of restriction: federal constitutional limits on who is eligible at all, and state law requirements that elevate a murder to a capital offense.
The U.S. Supreme Court has placed four hard limits on death eligibility that apply in every state. The death penalty cannot be imposed on anyone who was under 18 at the time of the offense (Roper v. Simmons, 2005), and California codifies the same rule in Penal Code 190.5.2Justia. Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005)3Supreme Court of the United States. California Penal Code Sections 187, 190, 190.1, 190.2, 190.3, 190.4, and 190.5 People with intellectual disabilities cannot be executed (Atkins v. Virginia, 2002).4Legal Information Institute. Atkins v. Virginia A prisoner who no longer understands the punishment or the reason for it cannot be executed either (Ford v. Wainwright, 1986).5Legal Information Institute. Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399 And the crime itself must have resulted in, or been intended to result in, the victim’s death (Kennedy v. Louisiana, 2008), which confines capital punishment to murder and a narrow set of offenses against the state like treason.6Legal Information Institute. Kennedy v. Louisiana
A first-degree murder conviction, on its own, is not enough. The prosecution must also prove at least one “special circumstance” under Penal Code 190.2.7California Legislative Information. California Code PEN – 190.1 The statutory list is long. It covers murders committed for financial gain, cases with multiple victims, defendants with a prior murder conviction, killings of peace officers, firefighters, prosecutors, judges, or witnesses, murders by lying in wait or with an explosive, hate-motivated killings based on race, religion, or nationality, and killings during the commission of felonies like robbery, kidnapping, carjacking, or arson. For felony-murder cases, the defendant must have actually killed, attempted to kill, intended that a killing occur, or been a major participant who acted with reckless indifference to human life.
How a Death Sentence Is Imposed
California capital trials are bifurcated.7California Legislative Information. California Code PEN – 190.1 The jury first decides guilt. If it convicts the defendant of first-degree murder and finds a special circumstance true, the same jury then holds a penalty phase to choose between death and life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The penalty phase is wide open on both sides. Prosecutors introduce aggravating evidence: the brutality of the crime, prior violent conduct, past felony convictions. The defense introduces mitigating evidence, which can include almost anything about the defendant’s background and character, from childhood trauma and mental illness to cooperation with authorities. The jury must unanimously conclude that aggravating circumstances outweigh mitigating ones to return a death verdict. If a single juror disagrees, death is off the table. A deadlocked penalty phase is retried before a new jury; if the second jury also deadlocks, the court imposes life without parole.
Why Executions Could Not Resume Immediately
California’s last execution was Clarence Ray Allen on January 17, 2006.8California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Inmates Executed 1978 to Present – Capital Punishment Weeks later, a federal district court found that the state’s lethal injection protocol, as actually administered, created an undue risk of extreme pain in violation of the Eighth Amendment. More than a decade of regulatory failure followed. A Marin County court held that any new protocol had to go through formal rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act. The Office of Administrative Law disapproved proposed regulations in 2010. Proposition 66, passed in 2016, later exempted execution protocols from the APA, and the Department of Corrections submitted new “file and print” regulations in early 2018. Then the moratorium arrived in March 2019 and withdrew the protocol entirely.9California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Timeline of Lethal Injection Protocol Regulations
Under California law, executions are carried out by lethal injection, with lethal gas available if the condemned person elects it or if lethal injection is held invalid. The state has not pursued alternative methods like nitrogen hypoxia or firing squads.
Why Capital Cases Take Decades
Every death sentence in California triggers a mandatory automatic appeal to the California Supreme Court, whether or not the defendant wants one.10California Attorney General’s Office. A Victim’s Guide to the Capital Case Process The court can affirm, reverse the sentence while keeping the conviction, or vacate the conviction. This direct review alone routinely runs a decade or more.
Separate from the direct appeal, a condemned person can file a state habeas corpus petition raising issues outside the trial record, such as ineffective assistance of counsel, prosecutorial suppression of evidence, or newly discovered facts. Proposition 66 shifted the initial habeas filing from the California Supreme Court to the trial court that handled the case originally.11Legislative Analyst’s Office. Proposition 66 Ballot Analysis
After state remedies are exhausted, the condemned person can petition a federal district court under 28 U.S.C. ยง 2254, arguing that the conviction or sentence violated the federal Constitution. The federal statute sets target deadlines of 450 days in the district court and 120 days on appeal, but these are aspirational and routinely missed.12Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC Ch. 154 – Special Habeas Corpus Procedures in Capital Cases Federal review generally considers only claims already raised in state court, with narrow exceptions for new retroactive constitutional rules or evidence that could not have been discovered earlier. The full cycle from sentence through state and federal review can span 25 years.
What Voters Did in 2016
Two competing measures appeared on the November 2016 ballot. Proposition 62 would have repealed the death penalty and made life without parole the maximum sentence. Voters rejected it by roughly 53 percent. Proposition 66, which aimed to speed up the system rather than end it, passed.
Proposition 66 redirected initial habeas petitions to the original trial court, set a five-year target for completing the direct appeal and habeas process, and expanded the pool of attorneys eligible to handle capital appeals.11Legislative Analyst’s Office. Proposition 66 Ballot Analysis The five-year goal has not been met in practice. The measure also exempted execution procedures from the Administrative Procedure Act, authorized housing condemned inmates in any prison rather than only on traditional death row, required those inmates to work with 70 percent of earnings going to victim restitution, and set a one-year deadline for appointed habeas counsel to file their petition and 60 days for the trial court to issue an initial ruling.13California Courts. Proposition 66 Rules
Death Row Today
California’s condemned population is shrinking. As of early 2025, estimates range from about 575 to 600 people, depending on the source and whether individuals awaiting transfer after resentencing are counted. At least 45 people were resentenced to lesser terms in 2024 through successful appeals, plea agreements, and resentencing proceedings. Natural deaths, suicides, and reversals continue to bring the number down.
Where those inmates live has also changed. Using the housing authority from Proposition 66, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation began phasing out segregated death row units at San Quentin (now called San Quentin Rehabilitation Center) and the Central California Women’s Facility in early 2024.14California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. CDCR Provides Update on Condemned Inmate Transfer Program Under the Condemned Inmate Transfer Program, death-sentenced people are moved to general population housing at facilities with at least a Level II security designation and lethal electrified fencing, and are classified at the highest custody level within general population for a minimum of five years. The 20 condemned women at the Central California Women’s Facility have already been relocated.
Federal Cases Are Not Covered
The state moratorium applies only to California executions. Federal capital charges, including certain terrorism-related killings, drug-trafficking murders, and killings during other federal crimes, can still be brought for conduct in California. Attorney General Merrick Garland imposed a federal moratorium in July 2021, but it was lifted by the current administration, with a Department of Justice memorandum directing the government to resume seeking and carrying out death sentences.15U.S. Department of Justice. Reviving the Federal Death Penalty and Lifting the Moratorium on Federal Executions Federal executions take place at Terre Haute, Indiana, so a defendant sentenced to death in federal court for a California crime would not be shielded by the state moratorium.
The Cost
Studies have consistently found that California’s capital system costs billions more than one in which life without parole is the top sentence. The difference accumulates at every stage: longer and more complex trials, mandatory appointment of two defense attorneys in capital cases, decades of multi-level appeals, and higher housing costs for condemned inmates. Researchers have estimated that California’s death penalty has cost taxpayers roughly $4 billion more since 1978 than a comparable system without it, with projections of several billion more through 2050 if the current structure continues.