California DA goes ballistic over Gavin Newsoms death row bombshell, vows to keep seeking executions
A California district attorney is vowing to keep pursuing the death penalty in murder cases despite Gov.Gavin Newsom’s decision to commute the sentences of every inmate on the state’s death row.San Joaquin County District Attorney Ron Freitas blasted the Democratic governor’s sweeping clemency move, accusing his office of sidelining victims’ families and wiping away decades of work by prosecutors seeking justice for some of California’s most notorious killers.“We will continue to prosecute the worst of the worst and selectively find those individuals, and we will continue to seek the death penalty in the right cases, for the right individuals, for our right victims,” Freitas told KCRA.
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By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.Never miss a story Freitas said victims’ families were left devastated by the decision, which he described as a sudden erasure of the justice they had spent years waiting for.“Our victims are amazing, to have gone through what they’ve gone through.
Waiting for their cases to be solved, seeing,” he said.“And now the appellate system and to have so much taken away overnight in one stroke of a pen, I cannot tell you how devastated they are, but also how inspired we are all the district attorneys across the state to fight for them and to get them justice.”Newsom announced Thursday that he would commute the death sentences of all 548 inmates on California’s death row, effectively replacing their capital punishment with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.The governor defended the move in a letter to Californians, arguing that the state should not execute prisoners because of concerns about the morality of state-sanctioned killing and the possibility of wrongful convictions.“But as Governor, I have concluded the state cannot m...