How one California death row inmate responded to Newsom’s commutations

San Francisco Chronicle · Hannah Wiley · 2026-11-05 22:40 UTC

Albert Jones was sentenced to death for a double homicide in 1993. A San Francisco Chronicle reporter told him his sentenced had been changed.

Albert Jones hadn’t yet heard the news on Thursday that Gov. Gavin Newsom had commuted his sentence to life without parole, along with the other 547 condemned inmates in California, until a San Francisco Chronicle reporter told him on the phone.

“He did? Oh wow!” said Jones, 62. “I don’t know what to think now. I gotta call my lawyer.”

Jones was transferred out of San Quentin in 2024 and is now housed at Ironwood State Prison in Blythe, following Newsom’s initial moratorium on executions in 2019 and an order for prison officials to dismantle death row.

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