Over the past 50 years, 917 death row inmates in the United States have received clemency. Nearly 60 percent of those inmates were spared on Thursday when outgoing California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D.) commuted the death sentences of the state's 548 death row inmates, including several notorious serial killers and child murderers.
Newsom said California can't ethically kill those sentenced to die as he justified his decision. It's the largest mass commutation of death sentences in U.S. history by a wide margin. The sheer brutality of the crimes committed by those spared by the California governor is incomparable to past commutation sprees.
They include infamous child murderers whose crimes made national headlines—including Richard Allen Davis, whose murder of Polly Klaas, 12, in 1993 led to California's "three-strikes law."