California DAs Revolt as Newsom Frees Rapists, Murderers
and Attempted Killers.
271 pardons. 166 commutations. One governor positioning for 2028.

He murdered her in 1974. Newsom let him go in 2026.

In the early morning hours of June 18, 1974, Genevieve Adaline Moreno was working her shift at Old Blues Bar in Nipomo, a small community in San Luis Obispo County. Alberto Tamez Jr. struck her, robbed the register, dragged her from the bar to a nearby eucalyptus grove, continued to beat her as she screamed and begged him not to hurt her, and left her there after she lost consciousness. She did not survive.

Tamez was charged with first-degree murder, robbery, kidnapping, and rape by force and violence — with the murder charge carrying three special circumstances allegations: that it was committed during a robbery, a kidnapping, and a rape. He pled no contest to first-degree murder on September 3, 1974, and was sentenced to life in state prison with the possibility of parole nine days later. He was 51 years into that sentence when the California Board of Parole Hearings voted to release him on December 30, 2025.

Under California law, when the Board of Parole grants parole to a first-degree murderer, the governor receives the decision and has 30 days to reverse it. DA Dan Dow — who had opposed Tamez at every stage, including fighting his attempt to vacate the conviction — urged Newsom to use that authority. On April 24, 2026, the governor’s office communicated to the Board that Newsom would take no action. Tamez walked out of state prison.

“I am deeply troubled that our criminal and victim justice system has reached a result where the man who brutally murdered Genevieve Moreno over fifty years ago will now walk free. We are deeply disappointed that the Board of Parole Hearings granted parole, and that the Governor chose to take no action to reverse that decision.”

San Luis Obispo County DA Dan Dow — Statement, May 2026, on the release of Alberto Tamez Jr.

10 counts of premeditated attempted murder. Pardoned. ICE blocked.

On February 20, 2026, Governor Newsom announced eight pardons and six commutations in a single batch. Among the pardons was Somboon Phaymany, a Cambodian national who had entered the United States illegally and was convicted in 1997 on 10 counts of premeditated attempted murder for a gang-on-gang parking lot shooting in Sacramento County. He served 20 years in state prison.

Phaymany had received a final order of removal from an immigration judge in 2019 following those convictions. Newsom’s pardon erased the qualifying convictions that made him removable under federal immigration law — effectively shielding him from active ICE deportation proceedings and allowing him to remain in California. The Department of Homeland Security issued a formal press release titled “CALIFORNIA CALAMITY” the following day.

Newsom’s office defended the pardon, citing Phaymany’s rehabilitation and the support of Catholic bishops who had urged the pardon explicitly as a defiance of Trump’s DHS. Catholic Bishop Michael Pham and the Rev. Scott Santarosa had written to Newsom arguing Phaymany “underwent a radical transformation” in prison and that DHS was perpetrating an “injustice” with its deportation push.

The same February 2026 batch included the commutation of Laurence Perry, who had fatally shot a victim in front of a convenience store and was serving life without the possibility of parole. His sentence was commuted, making him eligible to seek parole. Perry is one of at least 49 inmates serving life without parole for murder whose sentences Newsom has commuted since taking office.

Multiple counties. Multiple DAs. Same governor.

The opposition to Newsom’s clemency decisions is not informal. It is documented, organized, and cross-jurisdictional. San Luis Obispo County DA Dan Dowhas formally opposed two separate clemency decisions in a 13-month window: the Tamez release (murder-kidnapping-rape, 1974) and the Allie Brown release (second-degree murder of her 22-month-old daughter Lily, 2013). Both opposition letters went directly to Newsom’s office. In the Tamez case, Newsom declined to act. In the Brown case, as of May 2026, the 30-day window remains open.

San Bernardino County District Attorney’s office maintains a formal “No Release”page on its official website — a running public docket of cases where Newsom has commuted sentences and the DA’s office is on record opposing the release at parole hearings. Among the listed cases: Rodney Patrick McNeal, a former San Bernardino County probation officer who murdered his wife Debra and their unborn child Samara on March 10, 1997. Newsom commuted McNeal’s sentence on March 27, 2020. A parole board granted McNeal parole seven months later.

Eight months into his term. 21 violent offenders. One governor.

Eight months into his first term as governor, Gavin Newsom (D-CA) commuted the sentences of 21 prison inmates in a single announcement. Fourteen were convicted of murder or attempted murder. Seven had been sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. The California Senate Republican Caucus responded with a formal condemnation, documenting the specific crimes: gang members who murdered during drug-related crimes, drive-by shooters, armed robbers, carjackers, domestic violence offenders, and home invaders. Nineteen of the 21 committed their crimes using a firearm.

Newsom argued that the commutations did not free the inmates — they only made them eligible for parole hearings where the Board of Parole would independently assess public safety risk. But critics noted that this framing itself reveals the mechanism: by commuting an LWOP sentence, a governor converts a permanent bar to parole into a discretionary hearing. The governor controls the first gate; the board controls the second. Newsom was engineering the hearing opportunity, then stepping back to let the board bear the accountability for the actual release.

The California Globe documented this pattern in a detailed 2021 investigation titled “Under the Radar: How Gov. Newsom Uses Clemency to Engineer Parole for Recidivist Felons and Murderers.” The report found that Newsom had systematically used commutations to advance violent offenders from LWOP status to parole-eligible status — a process that bypasses the voter-approved sentencing structure that imposed LWOP in the first place.

California voters gave victims a voice. Executive clemency gives the governor a bypass.

California voters passed Proposition 9 in 2008, enshrining Marsy’s Lawin Article I, Section 28 of the California Constitution. Among its provisions: crime victims have the right to be heard at parole hearings, and the right to be notified of proceedings affecting the status of their offender. The law was named for Marsalee “Marsy” Nicholas, murdered in 1983, whose family had no idea her killer was walking free on bail until they encountered him in a grocery store a week after her death.

Marsy’s Law protections attach to parole hearings because parole hearings are a statutory proceeding with defined notice requirements. Executive clemency — a governor’s unilateral constitutional power to pardon or commute — is not a statutory proceeding in the same sense. Victim advocates have noted that when Newsom uses a commutation to convert an LWOP sentence to parole-eligible, the commutation itself occurs outside the formal parole-hearing structure, and the victim notification chain only activates when the separate parole hearing is later scheduled — often years after the commutation decision.

In the Tamez case, DA Dow made clear that victims’ advocates and the victim’s family had participated in the parole hearing process — and their objections were overridden first by the Board and then by the governor’s inaction. The family of Genevieve Moreno opposed the release. They were not afforded a mechanism to compel Newsom to reverse the board’s decision.

“These families are victimized — this time by Governor Newsom.”

California Senate Republican Caucus — Statement on Newsom clemency for murderers and violent offenders

From a Nipomo grove in 1974 to a Sacramento press release in 2026. Same governor. Same pattern.

271 pardons. 166 commutations. One pattern. No accountability.

Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has issued more pardons and commutations than any recent California governor in a comparable span — 271 pardons, 166 commutations, and 43 reprieves since 2019, by his own office’s count. The beneficiaries include convicted murderers serving life without parole, a man convicted of 10 counts of premeditated attempted murder who was in the country illegally, and a man who murdered, kidnapped, and raped a woman in 1974 whose family begged for him to stay incarcerated.

California district attorneys have formally and publicly opposed specific decisions. The San Bernardino County DA maintains a public “No Release” docket. The San Luis Obispo County DA has sent at least two formal opposition letters to the governor in 13 months. The California Senate Republican Caucus has documented the crimes of the recipients in writing. DHS has called at least one pardon “absolute INSANITY” in a formal press release.