For Phyllis Loya, 78, the commutation reopened a wound that never fully healed. Her son, Pittsburg Police Officer Larry Lasater, was killed in the line of duty in 2005. His killer was sentenced to death, but under Newsom's order, that execution will never take place.

"The only thing we can do now is fight," Loya said. "The only currency we have are our voices, so I will continue to speak out and I will continue to fight until the day I die for my son and the other victims."

Loya said she respects the families who support the governor's action but insisted they represent a minority. "Any victim that spoke out is a small minority compared to the ones that are fighting alongside me," she said, adding that her son would want her to keep fighting for justice.

Marc Klaas, whose 12-year-old daughter Polly was kidnapped from her Petaluma home and murdered by Richard Allen Davis in 1993, was especially angry that Newsom cited a meeting with Polly's half-sister and stepsister as a factor in his decision.

"The idea of dragging my daughter into this argument as a reason to commute all of the death row inmates — are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?" Klaas said, stressing that the sisters do not speak for his family. "Do you have any idea the emotions this is regurgitating? I don't sleep. I'm drinking. I'm not eating. I'm angry, as is every member of my family for the most part. It's just so terribly unfair."

On the other side, a handful of victims' relatives gathered publicly to applaud the governor. Among them were Polly Klaas's sisters, Jess and Annie Nichol, and Bethany Webb, whose sister was also a murder victim.

"What Gavin Newsom did was the most moral and courageous thing I've ever seen a politician do," Webb said.

Jess Nichol rejected capital punishment in her sister's memory. "Killing a person in our name does not undo what was done to Polly," she said. "It is not something we want done in her memory."

Annie Nichol echoed that view: "Nothing will undo what happened to Polly. Nothing can give her back to us. But California can choose not to compound violence in her name, or in the names of thousands of other victims."

Supporters also argued that the enormous cost of maintaining the death penalty system should be redirected to help victims' families.

The commutation order affects every person on California's death row, converting their sentences to life without the possibility of parole. Newsom, a longtime opponent of capital punishment, has framed the move as a matter of conscience, but it has thrust the families of victims into a painful public debate over whether executions deliver justice or simply perpetuate violence.

For Loya and Klaas, the decision represents a betrayal of the promise that the killers of their loved ones would face the ultimate penalty. For the Nichols and Webb, it is a moral reckoning — a chance for the state to break the cycle of violence rather than add to it.

As the families speak out, the political fallout continues to reverberate across California, with the governor's action certain to remain a flashpoint in the ongoing national debate over the death penalty.