A Colorado court of appeals on Thursday overturned the nine-year sentence handed down to Tina Peters, the Mesa County clerk who was found guilty of election tampering after she granted an unauthorized man access into the county’s election system in an effort to find proof of fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
While the three-judge panel upheld Peters’s conviction, it overturned her nine-year sentence because it was "based in part on improper consideration of her exercise of her right to free speech."
The panel found the judge who sentenced Peters violated her rights by calling her a "charlatan" and a snake-oil saleswoman who trafficked in false claims that the 2020 election was rigged against President Trump.
"The trial court's comments about Peters's belief in the existence of 2020 election fraud went beyond relevant considerations for her sentencing," the judges wrote. "Her offense was not her belief, however misguided the trial court deemed it to be, in the existence of such election fraud; it was her deceitful actions in her attempt to gather evidence of such fraud."
The panel ordered that her case be sent back to the county trial court for resentencing.
But the appeals court upheld the 70-year-old county clerk's August 2024 conviction overall, after finding that Trump did not have the power to pardon an individual for state law offenses, and that the doctrine of Supremacy Clause immunity does not protect an individual who is not a federal officer or federal agent from state prosecution for actions taken in service of federal government.
"We are unaware of — and can find no historical record of — any instance of a president pardoning someone for a state offense," the judges wrote.
Peters’s attorney, Peter Ticktin, said her legal team plans to appeal the decision, potentially to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The ruling comes as Trump has placed increasing pressure on Colorado leaders in recent months to release Peters from prison; the Trump administration has slashed federal funding to the state and relocated the headquarters of U.S. Space Command from Colorado to Alabama.
Under pressure, Democratic Governor Jared Polis has signaled he is moving toward granting clemency to Peters, calling her sentence “harsh” and noting she is in her 70s. He also recently compared Peters’s case to that of former state Senator Sonya Jaquez Lewis, who was sentenced to probation and community service for attempting to influence a public servant and for three counts of forgery.
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold called the governor’s comments “shocking and worrisome.” Senator Michael Bennet urged the governor not to pardon Peters or commute her sentence.
Griswold reacted to the appeals court’s ruling on Thursday saying she was appreciative that the conviction had been upheld and that Peters would "continue to face accountability for coordinating a breach of her own election equipment," according to the New York Times. She said that Peters "should not receive any special treatment as the District Court considers re-sentencing."
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, whose office was involved in Peters’s prosecution, said Thursday that the nine-year sentence was "fair and appropriate."
"Whatever happens with her sentence, Tina Peters will always be a convicted felon who violated her duty as Mesa County clerk, put other lives at risk, and threatened our democracy. Nothing will remove that stain," Weiser said.
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