If it weren’t for the fact that Gov. Gavin Newsom is in bed with the California prison guards union, I would credit him a lot more in these pages for his mostly right stances on criminal justice reform, including on the death penalty.

Before I get into defending Newsom going against the will of the voters on the death penalty, here’s a brief recap of my initial claim.

The California Correctional Peace Officers Association, the contemptible prison guards union principled people of the left used to condemn for California’s mass incarceration problem, endorsed Newsom for governor in 2018 and spent heavily in his favor.

As governor, Newsom has signed off on showering the union with several hundreds of millions of dollars in unjustified raises, bonuses and other goodies that could’ve been put to better use, I don’t know, preventing crime so people don’t end up in prison in the first place.

Last summer, not long after Newsom signed off on a big giveaway to the union, the CCPOA contributed $1.75 million to defend him from the recall. Newsom followed that up by defending the union in court from a vaccine mandate, yes, a vaccine mandate, requested by the federal receiver overseeing the prison health care system.

Democratic leaders have almost entirely been silent about all of that, because, remember, most political leaders (including many of your favorites) don’t actually care about all the nice-sounding talking points they spout or have their staffers tweet.

Anyway, back to the point of the column.

I credit Newsom for his support of criminal justice reform, because there’s no way anyone can look at the criminal justice system and say it’s optimal, humane or just.

That’s also true of the death penalty system in California.

There are nearly 700 people on death row. Since the restoration of the death penalty in 1978, over 1,000 people have been sentenced to death, but far more (235) have had their sentences found unconstitutional or otherwise problematic and overturned than have actually been executed (13), according to the state’s Committee on the Revision of the Penal Code.

In effect, then, having government execution on the books is effectively a false promise of a punishment that will probably never happen.

Given the extensive legal processes involved in handling death penalty cases, one estimate by Judge Arthur Alarcón and Professor Paula Mitchell indicates that California has spent at least $4 billion on its death penalty system.

Defenders of the government killing people will respond that the reason for these costs and failures is that it’s too hard to kill people and that it should be easier to kill people.

Then let’s consider who gets the death penalty.

Racial disparities have been the norm when it comes to the death penalty. For instance, 95% of people sent to death row between 2010 and 2020 from Los Angeles County have been non-white, with Black people making up 43% of the sentences despite the Black population being just 9%.

In other words, defenders of the government killing people want the government to cage disproportionately racial minorities and make it much easier to kill them.

I know this phrasing is annoying some people — they’re probably saying their desire to see the government kill people who just happen to be disproportionately not white is colorblind or something — but that’s what we’re talking about when we talk about the government killing people.

And on this, I will credit Newsom for having moral clarity.

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“I think premeditated murder is wrong, in all its forms and manifestation, including government-sponsored premeditated murder. I don’t support the death penalty, never have,” Newsom said upon announcing his plan to transfer people on death row out of death row. “I think there’s other ways to hold people to account. Life imprisonment without the possibility of parole being foundationally one of them.”

Yeah, that’s right. In effect, death row prisoners are already serving that sentence, their cases just go to court more often.

Ultimately, though, what needs to happen is the repeal of the death penalty by the people of California. Yes, Californians have rejected this idea before because a majority of California voters want the government to kill people. Some will defend this as “the will of the voters,” but here’s the thing: the will of the voters can change. I argue it should change.

Some will disagree, because they really want the government to kill people. But that’s their problem.

Sal Rodriguez can be reached at [email protected]