Phyllis Loya was leaving the gym with friends when she found out that the man who murdered her son would never face execution.
Her son, Pittsburg police Officer Larry Lasater, was 35 years old and a former Marine when he was shot and killed in April of 2005, chasing two bank robbery suspects. His killer, Alexander Hamilton, was sentenced to death. That sentence held for over two decades — until Thursday, when California Governor Gavin Newsom erased it along with 547 others.
"This is the worst day of my life," Loya said.
Newsom announced the commutation of all 548 death sentences in the state of California, converting every single one to life in prison without the possibility of parole. It is the largest mass commutation of death sentences in American history. Every murderer, every cop killer, every serial predator on California's death row woke up Friday morning with a governor-issued guarantee that the state will never execute them for their crimes.
Newsom's stated reason: "I take this action because I firmly believe that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California's values."
California's voters disagree. They rejected death penalty repeal measures in both 2012 and 2016. The people who actually live in California voted twice to keep capital punishment on the books. Newsom overrode them both times — first with an execution moratorium in 2019, now with a blanket commutation that makes the moratorium permanent.
Loya sees something else behind the timing. "He wants to be president," she said. "The election made him go for it today." The announcement came two days after Tuesday's midterm elections — timed, as Loya noted, for maximum political positioning and minimum political risk. Newsom is widely expected to seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028.
"Does Gavin Newsom ever talk about the victims?" Loya asked. "No, he doesn't."
She's right. Newsom's announcement centered entirely on the condemned. Their "values." Their sentences. Their future behind bars instead of on death row. The 548 families destroyed by what these inmates did to their loved ones received no mention, no acknowledgment, no call.
"It's been very tough. It's very emotional," Loya said.
The mechanics of the commutation reveal how carefully Newsom structured this to survive legal challenge. Roughly one-third of the commutations take effect immediately. The remaining cases require California Supreme Court approval because the state constitution mandates court review before a governor can grant clemency to anyone convicted of more than one felony. The affected inmates cannot seek release under new parole resentencing rules — they remain behind bars for life. But they will never face the punishment a jury decided they deserved.
