8-Year-Old Gabriel Fernandez Was Beaten, Burned and Forced To Eat Cat Faeces; Now Newsom May Spare His Killer

The man convicted of torturing eight-year-old Gabriel Fernandez to death is among hundreds of California death row prisoners whose sentences Governor Gavin Newsom is moving to commute.

Isauro Aguirre was sentenced to death for a killing that shocked the nation. Under Newsom's plan, he would instead spend the rest of his life in prison without parole.

The prosecutor who convicted him says the governor never spoke to Gabriel's family.

The Largest Mass Clemency in US History

Newsom announced on Thursday, 5 November, that he will commute the sentences of all 548 people on California's death row to life without the possibility of parole, Al Jazeera reported. It is the largest mass clemency in US history.

'State-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California's values,' Newsom wrote in an open letter.

About two-thirds of the commutations must be reviewed by the California Supreme Court before they become final. The state has not executed anyone in 20 years.

Months of Torture in Palmdale

Gabriel suffered abuse for months at his Palmdale home at the hands of Aguirre and his mother, Pearl Fernandez.

Prosecutors said he was beaten with a baseball bat, shot with a BB gun, burned with cigarettes and forced to eat cat faeces and his own vomit. He was locked in a cabinet overnight, sprayed with pepper spray, bound and gagged.

When first responders reached the home on 22 May 2013, Gabriel was unresponsive, with a fractured skull, broken ribs, missing teeth, burns and BB pellets embedded in his body.

He died in hospital two days later. Prosecutors presented evidence that Aguirre targeted Gabriel partly because he believed the boy was gay.

Gabriel's teacher had repeatedly reported signs of abuse. Child protective services investigated, and sheriff's deputies visited the home, but he was never removed from the household.

A jury convicted Aguirre of first-degree murder in November 2017 and found true the special circumstance of torture. Judge George Lomeli sentenced him to death on 7 June 2018. Pearl Fernandez pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life without parole.

'Gabriel Will Never Be Forgotten'

Deputy District Attorney Jon Hatami, who prosecuted both, condemned the decision. Gabriel was 'brutally tortured for over 240 days' before he was murdered, he told The Signal.

'The governor unilaterally commuted this murderer's sentence,' said Hatami, who leads the Complex Child Abuse Section of the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office. He accused Newsom of believing Gabriel's life did not matter and called the process 'unfair' and 'not transparent'.

Hatami said the governor did not speak with any of Gabriel's relatives before acting. He noted that Californians voted to keep the death penalty in 2012 and 2016. 'Gabriel will never be forgotten,' he said.

Supporters of the move see it differently. Robin Maher of the Death Penalty Information Center called it 'a decisive moment in the history of the death penalty in the United States', Al Jazeera reported.

The commutation would not free Aguirre or overturn his conviction, and it does not abolish California's death penalty. If his sentence is commuted, he would serve life without parole rather than face execution.