Commentary: Inside the prison cell where Newsom made his death row decision

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Set us as preferred For years after her sister Polly Klaas was murdered and the killer incarcerated on death row at San Quentin, Annie Nichol viewed the prison with dread, a place that contained the living embodiment of her unimaginable pain and fear.“Every time I drove by San Quentin, I would kind of get a chill,” Nichol told me Sunday.

“It felt scary.” Last week, Nichol found herself not just inside that prison, but inside the death row unit where Polly’s killer once lived, inside a cell that had not long ago housed other murderers — sitting with her sister Jess Nichol and Gov.Gavin Newsom during an impromptu meeting that the women had never imagined would happen there.

Despite the unease of the setting, the conversation would lead Newsom to last week’s controversial decision to grant clemency to the 548 Californians sentenced to capital punishment, changing their terms instead to life without parole (the state Supreme Court still needs to weigh in on the majority of cases).For all the public discussions about Newsom’s move, the roughly 25 private minutes he spent with the Nichol sisters was the final piece of a moral puzzle he’s been working on since he was 10, he told me — an unlikely journey that involves a mafia hit, a member of Polly’s family who opposes his decision, and warm socks.Yes, socks.But first, the cell.In 2019, Newsom put a moratorium on the death penalty and began remaking San Quentin following a European model of incarceration that stresses rehabilitation.

Death row, a cavernous hull of a building with multiple stories of concrete cells reaching up toward a ceiling so decrepit that birds roosted inside, was transformed.Annie and Jess found themselves sitting inside a space that was once two cells, and now has a chess board and giant green plastic chairs.Fluorescent lights seeped everything in a cold blue glow.“It did not feel good in there,” Annie said.

“It stil...