A Colorado appeals court Thursday threw out the nine-year prison sentence for Tina Peters, a former Mesa County clerk convicted on charges related to a scheme to bolster President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
The court upheld Peters’s conviction but concluded that the judge improperly sentenced her based in part on her repeated false claims about elections. That wasn’t permissible under her First Amendment right to free speech, the court found, and she must be resentenced based on her conduct alone.
The ruling is a partial victory for Peters, who has been in prison for more than a year and became a cause célèbre among Trump supporters who have embraced his false election claims. Trump has pushed to get Peters out of prison, and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) has flirted with commuting her sentence. Polis praised the Thursday decision but didn’t say whether he was still considering granting her clemency.
Writing for a unanimous three-judge appeals panel, Judge Ted C. Tow III said the trial court had imposed a lengthy sentence “because Peters continued to espouse the views that led her to commit these crimes.”
“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,’” Tow wrote.
Prosecutors filed 10 charges against Peters in 2022, accusing her of helping to secretly copy Dominion Voting Systems hard drives by slipping a purported computer expert into secure areas of her office using someone else’s security badge. Within months, data from her office appeared online and was featured at a symposium held by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who has spent years leveling false claims about elections and seeks to end the use of voting machines.
A jury convicted Peters of seven charges, including four felonies, in 2024, and District Judge Matthew Barrett sentenced her to nine years in prison. Soon after, Trump and his allies began pushing to get her out.
The Justice Department took the unusual step of intervening in court on behalf of Peters as she sought release. Trump issued her a pardon in December, but the Colorado appeals court determined Thursday that the pardon had no practical effect because she was convicted on state charges, not federal charges.
Polis praised the appeals court, both for finding that Trump’s pardon had no legal effect and for ensuring people get fair sentences. In his statement, he called Peters’s sentence an “obvious outlier” and said the appeals court “took action to ensure equal justice for all.” Polis has previously criticized the length of her sentence, highlighting that she is a 70-year-old first-time nonviolent offender, but has said he wanted to see her show contrition before deciding whether to grant her clemency.
“This case has been very challenging and a true test of our resolve as a state to have a fair judicial system, not just for people we agree with but a fair system for Coloradans that we vehemently disagree with,” Polis said.
Peters’s attorney, Peter Ticktin, and the White House did not immediately comment on the Thursday decision.
Trump has publicly pressed Polis to free Peters and called him a “sleazebag” for not helping her. Trump and his administration took several actions against the state, which many Colorado officials have interpreted as retribution for Peters remaining behind bars.
Trump vetoed a bipartisan drinking-water project in the state. He announced he was moving the U.S. Space Command from Colorado to Alabama. The administration said it was breaking up a massive atmospheric research center in the state. And the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service blocked a wolf reintroduction plan, dealing a blow to a program important to Polis and his husband, an animal rights advocate.
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser (D) emphasized that Peters’s conviction still stands.
“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,” Weiser said in a statement.
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D), who oversees elections in the state, said the trial court should not give Peters any special treatment in revisiting her sentence.
“Her actions have been repeatedly used to spread conspiracy theories, amplify falsehoods, and fuel dangerous election lies,” Griswold said in a statement.
Karin Brulliard contributed to this report.
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