Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of California. However, the penalty has not been carried out in that state since 2006, due to a standing federal court order issued that year against the practice when using lethal injection not administered by trained medical staff, and a 2019 moratorium on executions ordered by Governor Gavin Newsom. The litigation resulting in the court order has been on hold since the promulgation of the moratorium. Should the moratorium end and the freeze conclude, executions could resume under the current state law.
The state carried out executions until 1972 when the California Supreme Court struck down California's capital punishment statute in the case People v. Anderson. California voters reinstated the death penalty a few months later, with Proposition 17 legalizing the death penalty in the state constitution and ending the Anderson ruling. However, in the interim, the U.S. Supreme Court in Furman v. Georgia imposed a nationwide moratorium on capital punishment. Furman, along with continued challenges at the state level, delayed implementation of Proposition 17 for several years. As a result, the death penalty was not restored in California until 1977, under a statute approved by People v. Frierson in 1979.
The state's first post-Anderson execution was carried out in 1992. Since that time, there have been 13 executions, yet hundreds of inmates have been sentenced. The last execution that took place in California was in 2006. Three death row inmates in California, Kelvin Malone, Alfredo Prieto, and Glen Edward Rogers, have also been executed in Missouri, Virginia, and Florida, respectively.
, official California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) records show that there are 563 inmates awaiting execution in California, the lowest it has been since 2011, primarily due to suicide, death from other causes, fewer juries willing to sentence people to death, and resentencings by newly elected district attorneys, among other things. 18 of those with death sentences are women, held in general population at Central California Women's Facility (CCWF) in Chowchilla, with the other 545 inmates awaiting execution being men who are housed throughout the state, most having been transferred from the former death row at San Quentin State Prison.
California voters rejected two initiatives to repeal the death penalty by popular vote in 2012 and 2016, and they narrowly adopted in 2016 another proposal to expedite its appeal process. On August 26, 2021, the California Supreme Court upheld the state's death penalty rules though as of 2026 executions have yet to resume.
History Pre-Furman and pre-Anderson history The first known death sentences in the Spanish colony that would become the State of California was recorded in 1778. On April 6, 1778, four Kumeyaay chiefs from a Mission San Diego area ranchería were convicted of conspiring to kill Christians and were sentenced to death by José Francisco Ortega, Commandant of the Presidio of San Diego; the four were to be shot on April 11.Ruscin, p. 196; Bancroft, vol. i., p. 316 However, there is some doubt whether the executions actually took place.Engelhardt 1920, pp. 96–97: Reference is made to three letters written by Father Serra to Father Lasuén dated April 22 and June 10, 1778, and September 28, 1779, wherein Father Serra expresses his satisfaction over Governor Felipe de Neve's apparent grants of clemency in this regard. Based on these writings, Engelhardt concludes "It would seem that the sentence of death was commuted. At any rate, there are no particulars as to an execution."
Four methods have been used historically for executions. Until slightly before California was admitted into the Union, executions were carried out by firing squad. Upon admission, the state adopted hanging as the method of choice.
The penal code was modified on February 14, 1872, to state that hangings were to take place inside the confines of the county jail or other private places. The only people allowed to be present were the county sheriff, a physician, and the county District Attorney, who would in addition select at least 12 "reputable citizens". No more than two "ministers of the gospel" and no more than five people selected by the condemned could also be present.
Executions were moved to the state level in 1889 when the law was updated so that hangings would occur in one of the state prisons—San Quentin State Prison and Folsom State Prison. According to the California Department of Corrections, although the law did not require the trial judge to choose a specific prison, it was customary for recidivists to be sent to Folsom. Under these new laws, the first execution at San Quentin was Jose Gabriel on March 3, 1893, for murder. The first hanging at Folsom was Chin Hane, also for murder, on December 13, 1895. A total of 215 inmates were hanged at San Quentin and a total of 93 were hanged at Folsom.
California adopted the gas chamber as its sole method in 1937 (though two more hangings took place for people already sentenced). The first people to die in the San Quentin gas chamber (the only one in the state) were Albert Kessell and Robert Lee Cannon on December 2, 1938. Three more people had their death sentences carried out within two weeks. Up until 1967, 194 people were executed by lethal gas, including four women. The last person was Aaron Mitchell on April 12, 1967.
In previous eras the California Institution for Women housed the death row for women.
1972 abolition of capital punishment On April 24, 1972, the Supreme Court of California ruled in People v. Anderson that the state's current death penalty laws were unconstitutional. Justice Marshall F. McComb was the lone dissenter, arguing that the death penalty deterred crime, noting numerous Supreme Court precedents upholding the death penalty's constitutionality, and stating that the legislative and initiative processes were the only appropriate avenues to determine whether the death penalty should be allowed. The majority's decision spared the lives of 105 death row inmates, including Sirhan Sirhan (assassin of Robert F. Kennedy) and serial killer Charles Manson. McComb was so outraged by the decision that he walked out of the courtroom during its reading.
Following the ruling, the Constitution of California was modified to reinstate capital punishment under an initiative called Proposition 17. In 1973 a new statute was subsequently enacted, making the death penalty mandatory for a number of crimes including first degree murder in specific instances, kidnapping during which a victim dies, train wrecking during which a victim dies, treason against the state, and assault by a life prisoner if the victim dies within a year.
The debate over capital punishment played out in a somewhat similar fashion on the national level. On June 29, 1972, the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Furman v. Georgia, resulting in a de facto moratorium on executions in the United States. On July 2, 1976, the Supreme Court, in Gregg v. Georgia, reviewing capital punishment laws enacted in response to its Furman decision, found constitutional those statutes that allowed a jury to impose the death penalty after consideration of both aggravating and mitigating circumstances. On the same date, the Court held that statutes imposing a mandatory death penalty were unconstitutional.
In a later decision in 1976, the Supreme Court of California again held the state's death penalty statute was unconstitutional as it did not allow the defendant to enter mitigating evidence. A further 70 prisoners had their sentences commuted following this. The next year, the statute was updated to deal with these issues. Life imprisonment without possibility of parole was also added as a punishment for capital offenses. A later change to the statute occurred in 1978 after Proposition 7 was enacted. This gave an automatic appeal to the Supreme Court of California, which would directly affirm or reverse the sentence and conviction without going through an intermediate appeal to the California Courts of Appeal.
In 1983, The State Bar of California created The California Appellate Project as a legal resource center to implement the constitutional right to counsel for indigent persons facing execution. At around the time of its founding, Michael Millman became the director of CAP. Millman served as director of CAP for 30 years. CAP oversees the efforts to assist private lawyers representing the more than 700 people on California's death row.
1986 retention elections On November 4, 1986, three members of the state supreme court were ousted from office by voters after a high-profile campaign that cited their categorical opposition to the death penalty.
This included chief justice Rose Bird, who was removed by a margin of 67 to 33 percent. She reviewed a total of 64 capital cases appealed to the court, in each instance issuing a decision overturning the death penalty that had been imposed at trial. She was joined in her decision to overturn by at least three other members of the court in 61 of those cases. This led Bird's critics to claim that she was substituting her own opinions and ideas for the laws and precedents upon which judicial decisions are supposed to be made.
Resumption of executions and introduction of lethal injection
On April 21, 1992, the state carried out its first execution since 1967 by putting to death Robert Alton Harris for the murders of two teenage boys in San Diego. A series of four stays of execution issued by the Ninth Circuit appeal court delayed the execution, causing the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene to vacate the stays and prohibit all other federal courts from any further intervention, ruling that the lower court decisions caused "abusive delays" and were "attempts to manipulate the judicial process".
The available methods were expanded to two in January 1993, with lethal gas as the standard but with lethal injection offered as a choice for the inmate. David Mason, the first inmate to have this choice, made no selection, so was executed by the lethal gas default in August 1993. Following a legal challenge and Ninth Circuit appeal court decision in 1996, lethal gas was suspended, with lethal injection becoming the only method. Serial killer William Bonin was the first person to be executed under these new laws, on February 23, 1996. Thirteen people have been executed in California since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977, though 188 other people have died on death row from other causes (32 of them from suicide) as of September 17, 2026.
Lethal injection litigation
During the term of Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor, the state carried out two prominent executions in less than five weeks, with Stanley Tookie Williams in December 2005 and Clarence Ray Allen in January 2006.
A month later, in February 2006, U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy D. Fogel blocked the execution of convicted murderer Michael Morales because of a lawsuit against the lethal injection protocol. It was argued that if the three-drug lethal injection procedure were administered incorrectly, it could lead to suffering for the condemned, potentially constituting cruel and unusual punishment. The issue arose from an injunction made by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals which held that an execution could only be carried out by a medical technician legally authorized to administer intravenous medications. The case led to a de facto moratorium of capital punishment in California as the state was unable to obtain the services of a licensed medical professional to carry out the execution.