The murder of Rob Reiner and his wife has revived discussion of the death penalty in California. Perhaps Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) can stop undermining California law and grow enough of a spine to make a decision on it one way or another.
Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced first-degree murder charges against Reiner’s son, Nick Reiner, in the case. Those charges carry the possibility of the death penalty, which Hochman raised but said there had been no decision on as of yet. After entering office, Hochman reversed the county’s ban on prosecutors seeking the death penalty, which was put in place by his predecessor, pro-criminal “prosecutor” George Gascon.
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Unfortunately, this does not mean much in California. The state does have the death penalty, and voters rejected a statewide ballot proposition in 2012 that would have repealed it. People can still be sentenced to death under California law, but Newsom, in 2019, in just his second month in office, issued an executive order freezing all executions in the state. Newsom claimed, among other things, that the death penalty was racist.
If this is such a problem, nothing is stopping Newsom and California Democrats from repealing the state’s death penalty. Democrats control every level of state power, including holding 75% of seats in both chambers of the state legislature. They could even put the issue back to voters, as polls show that Californians have become more squeamish on the death penalty than in 2012, when 52% of them voted against repeal.
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Instead of doing that and following the law, Newsom has chosen to act like a king, letting himself effectively rewrite every death penalty sentence as life without parole. Nothing is stopping California Democrats from simply rewriting the law, except for a lurking fear of backlash against legislative Democrats in more competitive districts in the state. Therefore, Newsom has decided to openly defy state law to spare himself the inconvenience that the issue may be politically polarizing at the ballot box.
Newsom is going to spend the next several years running around talking about how President Donald Trump is an authoritarian and acting like a king, but he is guilty of the same. Even in Democrat-dominated California, Newsom would rather undermine the law and do things his own way than dare to let voters have a say in their own government.