This is a watershed moment, a turning point in the debate over capital punishment....

Sometimes politicians do amazing things. This happens most often upon retirement when they no longer feel worried about their careers and just want to do the right thing. Regardless, he's been working on this issue for several years and he deserves great praise for his astonishing decisions. Here's several strongly worded statements he made about this decision:

Detectives subsequently handcuffed Patterson behind his back, turned out the lights, suffocated him with a gray plastic typewriter cover over his head and struck him in the chest. When Patterson refused to confess, he was suffocated and beaten about the body again.....

They were found innocent. Innocent of the charges for which they were sentenced to die. Can you imagine? We nearly killed innocent people, nearly injected them with a cocktail of deadly poisons so they could die in front of witnesses on a gurney in the state's death chamber....

The Legislature couldn't reform it, lawmakers won't repeal it, but I will not stand for it. I must act....

Our capital system is haunted by the demon of error, error in determining guilt and error in determining who among the guilty deserves to die. What effect was race having? What effect was poverty having? Because of all these reasons, today I am commuting the sentences of all Death Row inmates.