Tina Peters has only herself and President Donald Trump’s election lies to blame for spending the last four and a half years in a Colorado jail.
Peters is wrong.
Trump is wrong.
But we cannot look at the 9-year sentence and not consider the importance of the First Amendment and our deeply held commitment to free speech. We fear, given the courtroom record, that it was in part her protected speech about stolen elections that elicited such an unusually harsh sentence, and a three-judge appeals court panel that reviewed her case agrees.
In that sense, while Tina Peters is dangerously wrong about Colorado’s election security, Gov. Jared Polis is right to offer her clemency.
Polis reduced Peter’s sentence to time served on Friday, resulting in her release at the end of this month.
The announcement was met immediately with political backlash. The accusation is that Polis is caving into an orchestrated pressure campaign from Trump to release Peters. This campaign involved revoking federal funds from Colorado and dismantling entire agencies to pull them out of the state. The fear is that the president will use Peters’ release only to bolster his attempts to undermine America’s democracy. He has called Peters a political prisoner and said she is innocent. Neither of those statements is true.
We are dismayed that Peters may now become a prop in Trump’s efforts to question the results of the upcoming midterm elections.
These political calculations, however, do not outweigh the importance of defending someone’s right to free speech.
Peters had every right to mount the legal defense of her choice. While competent legal counsel would advise against a defense that relied heavily on debunked election conspiracies, it was Peters’ right to make that choice.
We don’t want to be overly harsh, either, on Mesa County District Judge Matthew Barrett, who sentenced Peters. Barrett endured endless nonsense from Peters throughout the trial, including bad behavior that showed contempt. Long have defendants who displayed contempt for the court ended up with harsher sentences, and we are certain Peters’ lack of contrition and her outbursts in court weighed heavily on Barrett’s harsh sentence.
Frustratingly, that bad behavior continues even today. Peters’ attorney said that the Colorado Court of Appeals made the wrong decision because it was a “kangaroo trial.” Sir, the only kangaroo in that courtroom was your client.
Her 40-minute speech after being convicted is almost impossible to follow – she jumps from conspiracy theories about human trafficking and her son’s death to magnetic beds. The entire speech was an act of contempt for the guilty sentence she had just received from a jury of her peers. She showed no remorse.
Barrett stressed that in his sentencing – “I am convinced you would do it all over again if you could.”
Peters has already served a long sentence, given the non-violent nature of her crimes, which compensates for her complete disregard for the judicial process and law enforcement.
The good news is that Peters did admit guilt and express remorse in her clemency application.
She thanked Polis for the clemency in a tweet on X Friday: “I made mistakes, and for those I am sorry. Five years ago, I misled the Secretary of State when allowing a person to gain access to county voting equipment. That was wrong.”
It was wrong, and Peters broke several laws in the process – three counts of attempting to influence a public servant, one count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty and failing to comply with the secretary of state.
“I am grateful for a second chance and an earlier release, and I look forward to doing good in the world,” Peters said.
At this point, we would be grateful if Peters just does no more harm.
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