Xavier Becerra has the opportunity to ban executions in California once and for all 

When it comes to the death penalty, California seems to be stuck. Capital punishment is still legal, and people are still receiving death sentences.

Since 1978, according to the Pacific Research Center, the state has imposed the death penalty in 769 cases. There have been 13 executions and six exonerations. Nearly 200 condemned have died waiting for execution.

No one has been executed in the Golden State since 2006, when Clarence Allen was put to death by lethal injection.

In a death penalty state, two decades is a long time to go without any executions. And, at the moment, there is no prospect that any of the more than 500 people awaiting execution will meet that fate any time soon. That is because Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) imposed a moratorium on executions in 2019. Moreover, the state has neither an approved execution protocol nor a functioning execution chamber. 

California finds itself trapped between two competing impulses. “Voters reject efforts to end the death penalty and juries continue to authorize death sentences,” the Pacific Research Center observes, “while its governors are refusing to carry them out.”

On Sept. 8, Xavier Becerra, the Democratic nominee for governor and Newsom’s likely successor, announced that if he is elected, he would also refuse to allow anyone to be executed. That decision is to be applauded.

Becerra has come a long way in his thinking about capital punishment. He was once vocal in his support of it. Should he become governor, Becerra will need to do more to get California out of its death penalty limbo. In announcing his........

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