Colorado Gov. Jared PolisRick Bowmer/AP
On Friday afternoon, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis issued 35 pardons. He also commuted the sentences of nine prisoners, allowing them to be released years before they otherwise would be.
Some of these acts of clemency were deeply controversial. Polis, a Democrat, shortened the sentences of multiple convicted murderers. He is also setting free Brandin Kreuzer, who shot Douglas County Sheriff’s Deputy Todd Tucker in 2008 and has served 15 years of a 50-year sentence. “I had numerous surgeries to basically put my arm back together,” Tucker told Denver’s 9News. “I still have lasting nerve damage to this day. My arm is not 100 percent, does not function as it should.” The current county sheriff said in a statement that he was “furious” about Kreuzer’s commutation: “The audacity of Governor Polis to grant clemency to a would-be cop killer on National Peace Officer Memorial Day shows a complete lack of respect for the brave men and women who wear the badge.”
But it’s a different commutation that has sparked furious bipartisan backlash across Colorado. In 2024, Tina Peters—the former Mesa County clerk—was convicted of various crimes for her role in a scheme to illegally breach that county’s election system and in an effort to prove the 2020 race had been stolen from Donald Trump. Peters was originally sentenced to nearly nine years behind bars. On Friday, Polis commuted her sentence to about four-and-a-half years and ordered her paroled next month.
Trump—who for months has been demanding Peters’ release and attempting to punish Colorado for this and other perceived transgressions—immediately celebrated Polis’ decision. But beyond the MAGA faithful, the move is drawing broad outrage. Matt Crane, a Republican who directs the Colorado County Clerks Association, blasted Polis in a press conference, as Colorado Public Radio reported: “When given the opportunity to stand firmly for the rule of law, for the integrity of Colorado elections and for the public servants who defend them, [Polis] chose a different path.” The watchdog group Common Cause Colorado added that “Governor Polis’ decision undermines election security, weakens accountability, and permanently stains his legacy.”
These are reasonable arguments, but personally, I don’t find them compelling. There’s no doubt that Peters is a raging conspiracy theorist who abused her public office and broke the law. But nine years is an awfully long time. She is 70 and has already been in prison for more than a year and a half. A defendant who pleaded guilty to similar charges in the doomed Trump RICO prosecution in Georgia received probation. “The crimes you were convicted of are very serious and you deserve to spend time in prison,” Polis wrote in his commutation letter to Peters. “However, this is an extremely unusual and lengthy sentence for a first time offender who committed nonviolent crimes.”
Why was Peters’ prison sentence so severe? Partly because it was based unconstitutional factors. At sentencing, Judge Matthew Barrett indicated that he was taking into account not just her actions, but her noxious conspiracy theories. Among other things, Barrett accused Peters of peddling “a snake oil that’s been proven to be junk time and time again.”
“So the damage that is caused and continue[s] to be caused is just as bad, if not worse, than the physical violence that this court sees on an all too regular basis,” Barrett declared. “And it’s particularly damaging when those words come from someone who holds a position of influence like you.”
The key word there is “words.”
Last month, three Colorado appellate judges—all of whom were appointed by Polis’ Democratic predecessor—unanimously threw out Peters’ prison sentence, declaring it a clear violation of her First Amendment free speech rights. They ordered Peters to be resentenced, but Polis intervened before that could happen.
“It is apparent that the [trial] court imposed the lengthy sentence it did because Peters continued to espouse the views that led her to commit these crimes,” the appeals court concluded. “The tenor of the [trial] court’s comments makes clear that it felt the sentence length was necessary, at least in part, to prevent her from continuing to espouse views the court deemed ‘damaging.’”
In other words, Peters should have been sentenced for what she actually did, not the bizarre conspiracy theories she espoused. She can be punished for the crimes she committed in her illegal quest to expose non-existent election fraud. But she can’t be punished for loudly voicing her beliefs.
Publicly, Peters herself now claims to recognize this distinction. In a statement she released after the commutation was announced, she acknowledged that her actions were wrong but said that once released, she planned to “support election integrity” through “legal means.”
I have no doubt that Peters will continue spreading damaging election conspiracy theories in the years to come. But prison is not the solution to that.
Polis addressed that point in an interview Friday with 9News’ Kyle Clark. “I vehemently disagree with much of what she has to say, certainly her conspiratorial beliefs,” the governor said. But, he added, the proper way to oppose such rhetoric is through public refutation—not to “lock somebody up because they believe something that is…conspiratorial and potentially dangerous.”
“That’s not the country we live in,” Polis said. “I believe in free speech.”