O’Melveny Defends California Governor’s Right to Issue Death Penalty Moratorium

O'Melveny defended California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s right to issue a moratorium on the use of the death penalty after a lawsuit filed in Sacramento Superior Court challenged the moratorium, claiming it was an unconstitutional exercise of the governor’s reprieve power. O’Melveny argued that the imposition of the death penalty was so racially unjust as to be constitutionally suspect. By focusing on the threshold issue of standing, O’Melveny convinced the court to issue a final judgment in favor of the governor and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Newsom's moratorium, imposed by an executive order issued at the beginning of his term in January 2019, was structured as a blanket reprieve for all death row inmates. The executive order emphasized the expenditure of billions of taxpayer dollars and the disproportionate application of the death penalty to people of color, the poor, and the mentally ill. It was the latter premise, addressing the disparity, that motivated O’Melveny to take the case.

O'Melveny’s work on death penalty-related pro bono cases dates back long before the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, but that racial reckoning brought the issue to the forefront.