Mother’s anguish renewed as Newsom moves to spare son’s killer

Eight-year-old Paul Bailly loved to make people laugh. His mother, Mary, once told a Ventura County jury she thought her little boy might grow up to be a comedian, accord­ing to a 1991 Los Angeles Times report. But on Nov. 5, more than 36 years after her son was murdered, Mary Bailly had little reason to laugh. Greg Totten, the former Ventura County district attorney who helped prosecute her son’s killer, said he called Bailly to tell her Gov. Gavin Newsom had moved to commute the death sentence of Gregory Scott Smith and 547 others to life in prison without the possibility of parole. “Not an easy conversation to tell her what the governor has done,” Totten said in an interview with the Acorn. Her reaction? “She is outraged at the governor’s decision,” he said. Newsom announced he intends to commute sentences for all death-row inmates—including 15 sentenced in Ventura County—as he approaches the end of his eight years in office.

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