Can't say I didn't expect something like this from ol' Gavin.

From Gavin:

I have decided to exercise my constitutional clemency authority to commute all California death sentences to life without the possibility of parole.
After nearly 30 years in public office, I have come to understand the limits of what government can justly accomplish. 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 each of us.

Bro really thinks the government shouldn't have the power to kill people it deems criminals!

That's around 550 death-row inmates, cleared of death.

This is being billed as the largest mass commutation in modern American history. It wipes out nearly 30% of the entire US death row population in one stroke.

A few very important points:

California hasn't executed anyone since 2006.
Newsom already imposed a moratorium on executions in 2019 and dismantled the death chamber at San Quentin.
Voters repeatedly rejected attempts to abolish the death penalty and even approved measures to speed it up.
Many of these inmates are the worst of the worst (people convicted of multiple murders, child killings, and other crimes).
The commutations are permanent. These offenders stay locked up for life with no parole eligibility.
Some of the commutations still need California Supreme Court approval due to prior felony convictions, but Newsom is pushing them through anyway.

So yeah, California spent decades and billions of dollars maintaining the nation's largest death row, held trials, secured jury verdicts of death, and then one governor, on his way out, decided the whole thing was morally incompatible with California values.