More U.S. military officers are being mobilized late next week because the original pool in the death penalty case is being depleted.

© Hasan Jamali/Associated Press

Unless the next governor, Xavier Becerra, keeps commuting sentences, California’s death row is likely to slowly repopulate in the coming years.

© Eric Risberg/Associated Press

Gavin Newsom’s decision to empty California’s death row saves hundreds of lives and signals a national shift

Gavin Newsom’s decision to empty his state’s death row is a truly remarkable moment in the US’s death penalty history.

Not only will it free hundreds of people from the threat of execution, but coming from a politician seemingly looking to run for the presidency, it sends an important signal that America’s attachment to capital punishment is weakening, and opposing the death penalty is no longer a third rail in US politics.

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© Photograph: Juliana Yamada/AP

© Photograph: Juliana Yamada/AP

© Photograph: Juliana Yamada/AP

Democrat’s move prevents these people from executions under future governors, after Christa Pike’s failed execution

Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, commuted the death sentences of more than 500 people on the state’s death row on Thursday, a move that ensures they can never be executed under future administrations.

The Democrat’s mass commutation at the end of his term has converted all of the state’s death sentences to life without the possibility of parole, the largest clearing of any US death row in modern history.

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© Photograph: Tayfun Coşkun/Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Tayfun Coşkun/Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Tayfun Coşkun/Anadolu/Getty Images

Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is considering a run for president, called capital punishment morally objectionable. Though California hasn’t executed anyone for 20 years, that represents about a quarter of death sentences nationwide.

© Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times

Unusual instance of three states administering the death penalty on the same day previously happened in 2010

Alabama, Florida and Indiana all carried out executions on Thursday in an unusual instance of three states administering the death penalty on the same day.

In a record-tying 19th execution of the year, Florida executed Jesse Guardado via a three-drug lethal injection. Guardado had pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing a 75-year-old woman inside her Walton county home in 2004 before stealing her jewelry box, $80 and other valuables to buy drugs. The woman had helped him get a job and housing.

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© Photograph: Douglas R Clifford/Tampa Bay Times/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Douglas R Clifford/Tampa Bay Times/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Douglas R Clifford/Tampa Bay Times/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

A Saudi man is charged with the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, which killed 17 American sailors in 2000.

© Doug Mills/The New York Times

Pike is facing death penalty for 1995 murder of classmate, despite surviving a botched execution last month

Christa Pike has marked a month since her failed execution by Tennessee and released a statement in which she laments the “incompetence” that has led to this moment, adding that despite ongoing healing she remains in constant physical pain and mental anguish.

In comments released by her legal team on Friday, the prisoner said that there had not been a moment since she was injected with a massive dose of the sedative pentobarbital that she had not been in pain. “My body hurts. My arms hurt. My hands hurt. My throat hurts. I still struggle to speak. And the pain isn’t just physical. There is pain in my mind and in my soul,” she said.

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© Photograph: J Miles Cary/Reuters

© Photograph: J Miles Cary/Reuters

© Photograph: J Miles Cary/Reuters

Christa Pike, who was convicted of a 1995 murder, released her first statement since the failed attempt to execute her last month.

© Denny Simmons / The Tennessean/USA TODAY NETWORK, via Reuters

A Supreme Court decision and ethics opinions give judges room to speak their minds.

© Nathan Howard for The New York Times