Newsom moves to spare Officer Stephan Gray's killer; Merced DA vows to fight it

Gov. Gavin Newsom says he will commute every death sentence in California to life without the possibility of parole, and one of the 548 people on his list was convicted of killing Merced police Officer Stephan Gray in 2004.

Merced County District Attorney Nicole Silveira says her office will try to stop it.

Cuitlahuac Tahua “Tao” Rivera is the only person from a Merced County case on California’s death row, the Merced Sun-Star reported. His name appears on the governor’s list of intended clemency recipients, which lists Merced as the county that charged him and Colusa as the county where he was tried.

Rivera’s change isn’t final

The list marks Rivera with an asterisk, which means he has more than one felony conviction. Under the state constitution, the governor can’t grant clemency to someone in that group unless the California Supreme Court reviews the case and recommends it.

Of the 548 intended commutations, 382 need the court’s approval, the Los Banos Enterprise reported. Until the court acts, Rivera’s death sentence stays in place.

“Because Rivera has prior felony convictions, his commutation cannot take effect unless the California Supreme Court reviews his case and recommends it,” Silveira said in a statement Friday. “My office will work to formally oppose Rivera’s commutation, and we will do everything we can to make sure Officer Gray’s family has the chance to be heard.”

She called the governor’s decision “an unprecedented abuse of power, complete disregard of the will of both voters and juries in California and an appalling violation of the rights of victims and survivors.” She told ABC30 that her office is looking at options with district attorneys in other counties.

The killing of Officer Gray

Gray, 34, had been with the Merced Police Department for seven years and was working an undercover gang and narcotics detail when he stopped a vehicle on Glen Avenue on the evening of April 15, 2004. Rivera, then 21, was a passenger and on parole. When Gray tried to search him, Rivera ran, then turned during the foot chase and shot Gray twice, according to the county’s memorial page for Gray. Gray is the only Merced police officer killed in the line of duty since the department was founded in 1889.

Rivera was arrested outside Chowchilla on May 2, 2004. His trial was moved to Colusa County because of the attention the case drew in Merced. A jury convicted him in 2007 of first-degree murder with the special circumstance of killing a police officer, and he was sentenced to death. The California Supreme Court upheld the conviction and sentence in 2019.

In October 2023, a Colusa County judge dismissed two sentence enhancements under new state laws but agreed with Merced County prosecutors that the death sentence itself stood, GV Wire reported.

A stretch of Highway 99 and a Merced park are named for Gray, and a statue of him stands outside the police department.

“Absolutely the worst day in my career,” retired Merced Police Chief Tony Dossetti told ABC30 of the day Gray was killed.

What Newsom did

Newsom announced the decision Thursday in an open letter addressed to all Californians.

“By every measure, California’s system for administering the death penalty is a failure,” he wrote. “It has not been and cannot be fairly applied and has resulted in the conviction of innocent people.”

Newsom wrote that he considered sparing only some people but decided against it, because sorting cases “would inadvertently create two classes of murder victims.” He acknowledged that the decision “will anger and hurt some Californians.”

The order doesn’t repeal the death penalty, which voters have kept. Newsom wrote that prosecutors, juries and courts can still seek and impose death sentences. No one has been executed in California since 2006, and Newsom has kept a moratorium on executions in place since 2019.

The Death Penalty Information Center called it the largest act of mass clemency in U.S. history, CalMatters reported. The ACLU praised the move. The Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, led by former Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert, said it would challenge the commutations in the state Supreme Court.

Newsom leaves office in January. Gov.-elect Xavier Becerra has committed to keeping the moratorium, according to CalMatters.

Another death penalty case

Silveira told ABC30 that her office will keep seeking the death penalty against Jesus Salgado, who is charged in the 2022 killings of an 8-month-old girl, her parents and her uncle. Salgado is presumed innocent unless convicted.

“Our practice is not going to change just because the governor inflicted his personal beliefs into our justice system,” she said.

Sources: Gov. Newsom’s open letter and list of intended clemency recipients, Nov. 5, 2026. Merced Sun-Star. ABC30. Los Banos Enterprise. GV Wire. CalMatters. PBS NewsHour/AP.