Story by Susan Meeker
COLUSA COUNTY, CA (MPG) – Colusa County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey A. Thompson has ordered death row inmate Cuitlatuac “Tao” Rivera to appear in court next month on his petition for resentencing.
Rivera has served more than 16 years in San Quentin for killing Merced Police Officer Stephen Gene Gray in 2004. A Colusa County Jury condemned Rivera to death by lethal injection in 2007, after a change of venue brought the highly publicized case to local jurisdiction.
Rivera, who was a member of the Merced Gangster Crips, shot Gray, a gang task force officer, when the officer attempted to enforce a traffic stop on the vehicle Rivera was riding in with his girlfriend, the diver, and the couple’s 2-year-old daughter.
Rivera, who was 20 at the time of the murder, was a suspect in the shooting of two rival gang members four days earlier, and he was well-known to Gray and the gang task force, court documents state. Rivera had a lengthy criminal history, including convictions for making criminal threats and brandishing a weapon, for which he was jailed as a juvenile, among other serious crimes as an adult.
According to the testimony of the girlfriend, Rivera recognized Gray at an intersection before the officer turned his patrol car around to enforce the traffic stop. She said she did not know Rivera was carrying a loaded semi-automatic weapon in the vehicle, or that, as a parolee, he was searchable at any time.
A Colusa County jury convicted Rivera of first-degree murder, shooting at an occupied vehicle, assault with a semi-automatic firearm, and possession of a firearm by a felon, along with multiple special circumstances, including killing a police officer that, under California law at the time, warranted the death penalty.
Rivera is currently going through all the legal battles to have his sentenced reduced under California’s social justice reforms, which now require courts to consider age and other factors, such as upbringing, as well as new California laws that prohibit the compilation of special circumstance and enhancement charges to ensure the harshest penalties are imposed.
Deputy District Attorneys Thomas Min and Misty Compton, of the Merced County DA’s Office, will represent the people at the hearing on Oct. 12, via zoom.
Thompson has ordered the California Department of Corrections to arrange for Rivera to appear in person for the hearing, which is expected to take about 60 minutes.
Rivera is represented by Colusa County Public Defender Albert Smith, who told Thompson at the Sept. 6 court proceeding in Colusa County that he is having difficulty communicating with or receiving documents from Rivera, prohibiting him from properly assisting Rivera in his 1170.1 petition for resentencing.
According to records from Rivera’s 2019 California Supreme Court appeal, Rivera’s defense never denied Rivera killed Gray, a 34-year-old father of thee, but claimed the shooting was not premeditated and that he did not deserve a first-degree murder conviction or the death penalty for the crime.
Rivera is one of more than 700 death row inmates given a reprieve in 2019 by Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose executive order placed a moratorium on executions. Newsom also had the death chamber at San Quentin permanently dismantled.
Although he is not involved directly in the case, Special Prosecutor Matt Beauchamp, of the Colusa County District Attorney’s Office, said progressive prison reforms have allowed many dangerous prisoners to be released or seek release in the name of “social justice” and to reduce the prison population.
“Nobody is looking out for the greater good of the public,” Beauchamp said.
If resentenced, many inmates, particularly those sentenced to life for crimes committed when under the age 25, have a chance at eventual release.
In July, the parole board released Manson family member Leslie Van Houten after repeated blocked parole by Newsom, and his predecessor Jerry Brown.
Van Houten was convicted of the 1969 murders of Rosemary and Leno LaBianca, after she was convinced by cult leader Charles Manson that a killing spree was necessary to create a race war between blacks and whites, as court documents state.
Van Houten, who was 19 years old at the time of the killings, admitted to stabbing Rosemary LaBianca more than a dozen times and using the victim’s blood to write on the walls.